Coffee and How to Make It

• SA Engages

April 10, 2020

Coffee is one of those things that teeters between a luxurious commodity and a basic necessity, and if you’re anything like me it sits far closer to the necessity side of the scale. Starting every morning with a cup of coffee and a shower is a must, otherwise those around me are prone to meeting my less amicable counterpart, Decaffeinated Clay. I can’t say I was always like this, but since about my freshman year of high school, I have been an avid coffee drinker (albeit anything I could get my hands on), and since 2017 I have been lucky enough to be somewhat involved in the coffee industry.

When I first moved to Lynchburg in 2014, I outfitted my dorm room with a little eight cup Mr. Coffee and frequented Walmart to get the goods. Having grown up in a small farming town, the extent of “quality coffee” was something blended with whipped cream on it. After a year or so of frequenting Mr. Coffee’s all hours East Campus coffeeshop, I started to get interested in more intentional coffee roasting. Getting plugged into the coffee community in Lynchburg, which I can assure you is pretty expansive for a city of Lynchburg’s size, I began to learn more about the back end of coffee production, and processing. This helped me appreciate the drink I love so much and also understand the scope of what goes on before the cup ends up in your hands.

Essentially, coffee is a tree that grows fruit. This fruit is a stone fruit, meaning it has a pit, and is basically a tropical version of a cherry. Having grown up working on cherry farms for years as a kid, this sparked my interest. The fruit is picked, processed (which I will touch on later), and then sold through importers who connect farmers with roasters around the world. I am not a scientist, and am by no means an expert so I will keep my explanation of these processes as simple as possible, but I think it is important to consider where that cup of coffee you’re drinking came from, and who worked to get it there.

Once the coffee is picked, the fruit around the bean needs to be removed to be able to make it ready to roast. This is where coffee is actually a lot more scientific than I had ever known. There are many ways the fruit can be removed (which is called cascara and has been used to make a tea like drink for thousands of years, not invented by Starbucks). The two most common would be the washed and the natural processes. The washed is exactly what it sounds like, the fruit is removed through the application of water and agitation, leaving just the bean. The natural process is done by letting the fruit dry out in the sun and then removed with a machine through a process called hulling. The differing processes have a big effect on the ending flavor of the bean as the natural process imparts a lot of fruity flavors, which is what I’m all about. Once the coffee bean has been processed, it’s ready to roast. Each roaster will have different opinions of how to roast each batch of beans they have, but essentially, the idea is to roast the coffee to get the best profile of flavors out of it.

While I don’t expect everyone to care about coffee beyond whether or not they have a cup, I think it is important to remember that, like any business, there are people attached to the other end of our consumption. Most coffee production takes place in third-world countries and it labor intensive work. There has been a huge push in the last 15 years or so within the coffee industry to help promote good business practices in supporting the farmers that are responsible for the world’s favorite beverage. Small batch roasters and specialty roasters are able to track their coffee to a specific farm and family in most cases. Understanding the process that got coffee from the tropics and into my cup helped me have a greater appreciation for buying ethically sourced coffee that I track to a single producer. Coffee shouldn’t be pretentious or elitist, but it should be responsible.

After all these steps have been completed, which can take up to two years from being processed to roasted sometimes, you’re finally ready to brew your cup of coffee. At the end of the day, you’re supposed to enjoy the drink that you make, so if you have a system, stick with it. If you’re interested in learning some hand brew methods, I will share my two methods that I use most. The first being the V60 pour over, which I use at home and can make up to two 12 oz cups with my setup. Altogether the setup costs about $50, for a carafe, V60 cone, and filters, so kind a little investment but in my opinion, worth every penny for the quality of drink you can get out of it. My other hand brew method I use is the Aeropress, which is my work set, as it is small, quick, and makes a good cup of coffee. This will run about $30, and comes with everything you need except a cup and a grinder. While a scale, gooseneck kettle, and a burr grinder will help you get consistently good cups of coffee, they’re expensive and not necessary for making your coffee. Like I said, this is meant to be for your enjoyment.

Here are the recipes for my V60 and AeroPress that I use daily:

V60

25g coffee ground to medium coarseness

400g water (195°-205° F)

Begin by placing the filter in the cone, folding along the seam so it lays flush to the walls of the cone. Wet the filter with hot water to remove any paper flavor that might make its way into the coffee. Grind your coffee to a medium coarseness, think coarse sea salt. Put coffee in filter and slowly pour 60g of water in, making sure to get all of the coffee bed wet, let sit for 30 seconds to bloom. This allows the coffee to get saturated and release gas from the coffee particles. After 30 seconds begin slowly pouring into the center and work in smooth spiraling circles to the outside of the coffee bed and work back into center. Stop pouring at 200g as the level will have risen considerably. Once the water level has reduced by half, pour in same pattern for 50g. Continue with this process until you have 400g on the scale. If you don’t have a scale, you can use 5 tbsp of ground coffee and start with about 14 oz of water. You can fill your mug up and add a couple splashes of water to measure before heating it up to get a pretty close measurement. This should take between 2-3 min to brew. If it takes too long, grind your beans a little more coarse next time, and if it takes way less time, do the opposite.

Iced V60

25g coffee ground to medium coarseness

200g water (195°-205° F)

200g ice

Since it is beginning to warm up, and most of the coffee I drink will be on ice until September, here is a quick method for iced coffee. Using the same method as above, after wetting filter put 200g ice in carafe or mug. Brew your coffee as you would above, but using just half the water. When this meets with the ice it automatically waters is down and chills it. It’s quick, accurate, and effective.

AeroPress

17g coffee ground medium-fine

Water (195°-205° F)

Take off the perforated cap and place a filter in it. Carefully pour hot water over this to clean the filter of any particles or flavor that might make its way into your final drink. Pull the plunger all the way down to until it is almost completely removed from the tube. Pour your coffee into the tube and place AeroPress down on a flat surface on its handle. Pour water over coffee until it reaches the top. Carefully stir to make sure all the coffee is saturated. Apply the cap with filter in its place and set AeroPress on top of mug or carafe. Slowly push down on plunger until all the coffee has been pressed out. Remove cap and discard cap and enjoy!

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