The Coffee Compass

Five Coffee Resolutions for 2021

January 1, 2021 By Michael Leave a Comment

Unless you were already a billionaire when 2020 began, this last year was probably a rough one for you. Nothing has magically changed now that the calendar has reset, but that doesn’t mean the symbolism of a new year can’t inspire us to claim a little more autonomy over our lives. Here are five coffee resolutions we’re making in 2021, and we hope you join us!

Learn Some Geography

Most coffee-lovers can taste the difference between a coffee from Brazil and Ethiopia, but what about Cauca and Huila? (For the record, they are two of our favorite growing regions in Colombia, each with a distinctive flavor profile.) The coffee-growing world is immense, but we want to pay closer attention to the places and people who produced our morning cup. Whether it’s a community washing station in Burundi or a family-owned estate in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, we want to learn at least one new thing about each coffee we drink this year. …

Behind the Scenes with Chris Deferio of Keys to the Shop

December 9, 2020 By Michael Leave a Comment

I first met Chris Deferio in Madison Square Park at the original Shake Shack kiosk. I had just arrived in New York with my friend Kenny Smith to compete in the World Latte Art Open Championship at CoffeeFest. It was a cold and rainy March evening, but we thought a cheeseburger would help calm our nerves before the competition. As we huddled under an awning we looked over and noticed one other person crazy enough to brave the icy rain for a Shack burger. “I think that’s Chris Deferio,” said Kenny.

Since that chance meeting, Chris has become a friend and even a sort of mentor in the coffee industry for me. For younger baristas who don’t know their OGs, I like to mention that Chris had a Latte Art instructional DVD out before I even drank coffee. Chris is now a full-time podcaster and consultant, sharing his rich coffee and managerial experience on Keys to the Shop. I recently caught up with Chris over Zoom to learn more about his production process, and what it’s like to have more than 400 episodes out. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

I’m curious, what was the first coffee shop you had keys to?

I guess it was my first coffee job — the one I got fired from. It was a location of a company called Arsaga’s in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It’s not an Arsaga’s anymore. That particular location has since switched hands. It was bittersweet. I deserved to be fired, I’m not going to deny it. I learned a lot from that though, and obviously, kept going in coffee. I believe that was 1999.

I’m amazed by your creative output. How many episodes are you releasing these days?

The average is nine episodes a month. Tuesdays, which are full-length, Shift Break on Thursdays, and Founder Friday, which is the last Friday of the month.

The show kind of grew a life of its own. When I started I just wanted to do a show a week. I wanted the show to be a resource that was focused on supplying tools and great, actionable take-aways. …

How to Make Coffee with A Clever Dripper

November 25, 2020 By Michael Leave a Comment

The Clever Dripper might be the most underrated coffee brewer. The device is a sort of hybrid brewer that offers elements of both immersion and gravity drip methods. It’s easy to use, and most importantly, capable of making a really great cup of coffee.

Essentially, the device is a pour-over dripper with a sealable valve at the bottom. The valve allows you to steep the coffee as long as you desire. The resulting brew is somewhere between the body of a French press and the clarity of a Hario V60.

There are several practical reasons I love the Clever dripper:

1. It doesn’t need a gooseneck kettle like pour-over drippers.
2. İt uses Melitta #4 filters, easily the most ubiquitous coffee filter in the world.
3. The BPA-free plastic dripper and accompanying lid is very temperature-stable, which makes for easier extraction.

The only drawback, in my opinion, is that the draw-down can be hard to predict. If your grinder produces a lot of fines, it could easily take 2+ minutes for your brew to finish draining. Different coffees will drain at different rates, so when you’re brewing a new coffee there’s a decent amount of guesswork.

Without further ado, here is our Clever Dripper recipe.

1. Place 24 grams of medium ground coffee in the Clever Dripper.

2. Briskly pour 400 ml of 96° C water. Try to evenly saturate all of the grounds.

3. After 1:00 minute, gently stir the slurry, making sure all coffee grounds are immersed. Then place the lid on top of the dripper.

4. At 2:00 minutes, carefully place the Clever over the carafe, initiating drawdown.

5. Aim for 4:00 total brew time, plus or minus 30 seconds. If your brew takes much longer than that consider adjusting your grind size or shortening your steep time.

If you did steps 3 and 4 properly, the coffee bed should be perfectly flat at the end of brewing with little to no coffee grounds stuck on the sides of the filter. Be careful when placing the Clever dripper over your carafe— I’ve tipped more than one brew over at this step!

Have you experimented with a Clever Dripper? Feel free to share your go-to recipe in the comments section below.

Double Dutch: an interview with World Aeropress Champion Wendelien van Bunnik

November 16, 2020 By Michael Leave a Comment

Just over a year ago I traveled to Den Haag to take a course to become an authorized SCA trainer. Sitting across from me in the class was the reigning Dutch barista champion, Wendelien van Bunnik. Wendelien directs the education program at Single Estate Coffee, a coffee roaster in Maasdijk with a café in Den Haag. I recently caught up with Wendelien over email to hear about what it was like to win the World Aeropress Championship and why there’s more to the Dutch coffee scene than just Amsterdam.

Before becoming a coffee educator you were an English teacher. Does that traditional educational background influence the way you approach coffee training?

I think so yes! There’s a big difference between having a certain skill yourself, and being able to transfer this skill to others. During my (short) time as an English teacher, I learned that you must never forget how long it takes to learn a new skill. Once you’ve mastered a skill, it’s very tempting to forget the work you put in to learn it. So when I was in front of a class as an English teacher, I already learned that it’s not about the teacher, but about the learner’s process. The difference in speed and way people learn in general is so different for everyone. It’s up to me as a trainer to figure out how people learn the best, and to remain patient and focused on their individual process. Especially in my early days, I stepped into the pitfall of thinking training was about me as a trainer, having to demonstrate my skill (and impress every one of course). Although obviously, you need to be able to demonstrate skill, it’s 100% not about the trainer, but about the learner and the goal they want to achieve….

What Determines the Color of Brewed Coffee?

November 9, 2020 By Guest Leave a Comment

One of the most driven coffee professionals I’ve had the honor of meeting is Reza Kosar. In addition to being the first Iranian to become a licensed Q Grader, Reza is a talented coffee roaster with an insatiable curiosity in coffee science. He recently posed an interesting question on his Instagram account: what determines the color of brewed coffee? Which raises a second question, what effect does color have on flavor? We chimed in with what we thought was the right answer, but it turns out Reza had taken a deep dive into the subject and has graciously offered to share his research with us.

Roast

The roasting process leads to the formation of the characteristic coffee aroma and dark-colored
compounds. …

A Farewell to Fresh Cup

October 22, 2020 By Michael Leave a Comment

I remember realizing this spring that coffee shops I knew and loved would not survive the pandemic. It especially hit home when Quills Coffee shuttered their U of L café— a shop where I had logged thousands of hours on bar.

With cafés around the country closing their doors or switching to takeaway-only, perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised me when Fresh Cup Magazine notified me that my upcoming article about Turkish Coffee would be in their last issue. After all, who could imagine picking up a communal magazine off a random café table in the COVID-19 era?

My relationship with Fresh Cup started in 2014. I had seen the magazine …

Science Says Brew Temperature Doesn’t Matter — Sort Of

October 8, 2020 By Michael Leave a Comment

Time to re-write that Brewers Cup competition routine. According to a new study, coffees brewed at different water temperatures are indistinguishable at the same extraction percentage and concentration. The paper, a collaboration between the Coffee Science Foundation and the UC Davis Coffee Center, was published in the academic journal Scientific Reports under the rather catchy title “Brew temperature, at fixed brew strength and extraction, has little impact on the sensory profile of drip brew coffee.”

Researchers at UC Davis used a Curtis C4 batch brewer to brew a washed Honduras at 87°, 90°, and 93° celsius. Other brewing parameters such as grind size and total contact time were adjusted to achieve the same extraction and strength with each brew. A trained panel of professional tasters were unable to significantly distinguish between the different brews….

Baratza Announces Acquisition by Breville Group

October 2, 2020 By Michael Leave a Comment

For years, when it’s come to consumer coffee grinders and espresso machines, we’ve had one recommendation in both categories: Baratza and Breville respectively. Perhaps it’s fitting that Baratza has announced its acquisition by Breville Group, a publically-traded Australian company that manufactures appliances like the Breville Precision Brewer. In a blog post, Baratza CEO and cofounder Kyra Kennedy announced Baratza will continue as its own brand with its existing West Coast-based team.

Baratza’s range of electric burr grinders have long filled a niche for specialty coffee lovers looking for café-quality coffee at home. Whether it’s their entry-level Encore or high-end Forté, we’ve used most of their grinders, bought them as presents, and tested them against their competitors. Does this new consolidation mean we’ll see an integrated Sette + BES870XL combo? A Precision Brewer that somehow synchronizes with the Baratza Vario’s grind-by-weight feature?

Time will only tell.

Should Coffee be Saved? An interview with Lucia Solis

August 27, 2020 By Michael Leave a Comment

Among the voices calling for change in the coffee industry, none ring clearer than Lucia Solis’s. As a trained oenologist who studied at UC Davis, Solis uses her expertise as a winemaker to help coffee farmers improve their fermentation techniques. In reality, the better part of a decade spent traveling to coffee mills has made Solis one of the industry’s leading coffee processing experts.

As someone who has spent most of my time in coffee on the consumer-facing side, I’ve learned a lot from Solis’s newsletter and podcast, Making Coffee with Lucia Solis. I’m grateful that Lucia made time for a call over WhatsApp, where we discussed her podcast, the devastating effects of COVID-19 for coffee farmers, and whether or not coffee should be saved.

We’ve really been enjoying, and learning a lot from your podcast. What inspired you to start it?

It was an idea I had for a few years before I got the courage to do it. In 2016 I even sketched out a few episode ideas and was trying to come up with a podcast title. When I gave my 2017 ReCo presentation I thought I had made a basic argument, I didn’t understand why people didn’t understand what I was talking about. It took me the better part of a year to understand where people’s deficiencies were. I didn’t understand why people didn’t understand me.

Eventually I realized that because I was coming from a different industry, we had very different references.

I wondered “Why are we talking about this and not that”? Consequently being an outsider gave a fresh perspective on many things the coffee industry took for granted….

Why Latte Art is Still Important

July 31, 2020 By Michael 1 Comment

Latte art used to be overrated.

When I first got into coffee culture, circa 2007, latte art was my sole metric for determining a good coffee shop.

Of course, at the time my favorite drink was a caramel latte in a serving size that would make European heads swim. (I had only recently been converted from iced mochas with extra chocolate, a drink I enjoyed because “it tastes like chocolate milk.”) I’m not sure what other metric I might have used to determine what constituted a good cup of coffee.

But my approach also reflected the values of the barista community at large.

At the time, netting the top prize at CoffeeFest’s World Latte Art Open Championship could actually lead to an endorsement deal. Even a top-three finish would earn a barista fame and recognition in the coffee community.

But pendulum swings are inevitable, and it’s never been less cool to care about latte art….