michael mckee asked:


Traveling with a portable latte making kit probably seems crazy, but to those of us for whom quality caffeine consumption equals joy and functionality it’s something to consider. 

I live near Seattle and for years suffered quality coffee depravation (QCD) when traveling. Those great espresso shops that manage to survive on every block in the Northwest and the San Francisco Bay area quickly thin to nothing in other parts of the country, and except for bastions of coffee enlightenment like France and Italy may be impossible to find elsewhere in the world. Certainly, other parts of the world have long coffee traditions but their coffee is generally a different drink entirely, and alien to the palette.  

The attempt by Starbucks to spread through the known universe has made the situation somewhat easier, introducing decent coffee into many nooks and crannies, but Starbucks is not yet ubiquitous, nor is it generally available in room. 

For years my solution was to travel with quality tea. Tea can be quite good. Tea satisfies caffeine cravings. And, quality tea offers a subtle complexity that soothes the soul. However, tea is not coffee, and when I want that coffee intensity, nothing else will do.

Forget those in-room coffee makers that hotels and motels offer. The pre-packaged, weak and bitter brew they produce is nothing more than a caffeine fix. It wakes the body but brings no joy. Fine hotels generally serve quality coffee but the extra cost of the room is a high, high price to pay for a decent cup of coffee. What to do?

Fortunately, with some simple and relatively portable and inexpensive equipment, along with a microwave oven, now common in lodgings, it is possible to create a more than passable imitation of the coffee house classic. Here’s what you’ll need.

A portable coffee brewer. For years I used a plastic press pot also called a French press. Glass is nicer but is too fragile to travel with. That’s the simplest solution. Bring your own coffee, unfortunately pre-ground, but you can’t have everything. Zap a cup of water in the microwave and a couple of minutes later you have redemption.

The press pot has been replaced in my kit by a device called an AeroPress Coffee and Espresso Maker. The AeroPress looks like a hypodermic designed for a dinosaur. Instead of a needle, though, the coffee maker has a perforated flat end that holds a coffee filter. The AeroPress has one real advantage over a traditional press pot. It’s much easier and less messy to clean. And the coffee it makes is more like an espresso shot, tasting quit different from the brew the press pot produces. Both are good. They’re just different. 

The AeroPress is the better choice for making coffee for a latte. One possible down side of the AeroPress is that it takes some effort to press the plunger down. Pushing slowly helps but it may be more force than some are capable of using. It is not friendly to arthritic joints or smaller people.

Operation is simple. With filter in place, measure coffee into the tube. Place the maker over a coffee cup. Pour hot water in the tube, stir, wait 20 seconds and insert the plunger. Push it down to extract the coffee. The resulting brew is concentrated, not quite as much so as a shot of espresso but nearly so.

If you simply want a coffee, add hot water to desired strength, sweeten or lighten and enjoy. If you love lattes then you need another piece of equipment, a frother. 

The simplest way to make foam is to pour 2/3 of a cup of cold milk into a sealable and microwavable container. A hard plastic travel mug with a tight lid works great, as does a pint or half liter Nalgen bottle. When the milk, make sure that it’s cold, is sealed in, shake the thing for about 30 seconds. Remove the lid and microwave for about 20 seconds to set the foam. Either pour the foamed milk into a cup and add the coffee or pour the coffee directly into the travel mug. Instant, low-tech latte.

Non-fat milk works best but has little flavor. 2% milk is a good compromise between foam and flavor. Whole milk is not friendly to cold frothing. Again, make sure the milk is cold when you start. Warm milk won’t foam.

The shake and bake method makes foam but it isn’t the micro-bubble foam you’d get from an espresso machine. That may be good enough for you. If it’s not, never fear, there are portable frothers that do a better job than many home espresso makers and are light and small enough to pack. The most traveler friendly ones are battery powered mixers. Aerolatte makes a couple of models that come with hard plastic travel cases and run on two AA batteries.

Again, start with cold milk. Insert the frother and mix until you get a good foam. You will need a container with at least twice the volume of the milk you initially pour in. For hot foam, make sure that it is microwavable. No stainless allowed. Once you have whipped your foam into shape, microwave for 10 – 20 seconds, depending on how hot you want your drink. Be careful to not overheat the milk as that will collapse the bubbles. Combine the foamed milk with the coffee. Enjoy.

The motorized frother will actually make stiff enough foam to do a decent cappuccino, while the shake and bake method is only suitable for lattes.



EVITA

michelle faber asked:


Tips for Finding Perfect Premium Coffee…

There is coffee and THERE IS COFFEE! You likely know about the generic quality coffees you find at the supermarket, using the inferior Robusta beans. And, in contrast, there is the alternative: the coffee regularly termed Gourmet Coffee you buy direct from roasters around the country. Popular large volume roasters, like Starbucks as well as most of the the smaller roasters dispersed about town, essentially utilize this far better grade, high altitude, shade grown Arabica bean.

That being said, and broadly known by all nowadays, how can you siphon out the crème de la crème of gourmet coffee beans to purchase?

To begin with, let’s hone in specifically on taste. Nowadays, coffee has become a “drink of experts”…

evolved into an art of reflection! We’ve begun to savor our coffee…flavor identify and define the subtle hints and nuances, as well as the qualities that identify the bean’s continent of origin. You as a coffee drinker, can begin to explore and experience the undertones of your coffee’s region, but better yet, begin to revel in the independently specific flavors of the bean defined by the specific hill and farm where it’s grown.

Coffee Cupping: Defining Coffee by its “Underlying Flavors”

There are, nowadays, a limited number of coffee roasters that independently test their coffee beans for taste observations and aromas. These beans are graded and assessed just like fine wine. This activity is called Coffee Cupping or Coffee Tasting. Professionals known as Master Tasters are the assessors. The procedure involves deeply sniffing a cup of brewed coffee, then loudly slurping the coffee so it draws in air, spreads to the back of the tongue, and maximizes flavor.

These Master Tasters, much akin to wine tasters, then attempt to measure in detail, every aspect of the coffee’s taste. This assessment includes measurement of the body (the texture or mouth-feel, such as oiliness), acidity (a sharp and tangy feeling, like when biting into an orange), and balance (the innuendo and the harmony of flavors working together). Since coffee beans embody telltale flavors from their region or continent of their origin, cuppers may also attempt to predict where the coffee was grown.

There is an infinite range of vocabulary that is used to describe the tastes found in coffee. Descriptors range from the familiar (chocolaty, sweet, fruity, woody) to the conceptual (clean, vibrant, sturdy) to the wildly esoteric (summery, racy, gentlemanly).

Following are a few key characteristics as defined by Coffee Geek. (http://coffeegeek.com/guides/beginnercupping/tastenotes)

Key Characteristics

Acidity:

The brightness or sharpness of coffee: It is through the acidity that many of the most intriguing fruit and floral flavors are delivered, and is usually the most scrutinized characteristic of the coffee. Acidity can be intense or mild, round or edgy, elegant or wild, and everything in between. Usually the acidity is best evaluated once the coffee has cooled slightly to a warm/lukewarm temperature. Tasting a coffee from Sumatra next to one from Kenya is a good way to begin to understand acidity.

Body:

This is sometimes referred to as “mouthfeel”. The body is the sense of weight or heaviness that the coffee exerts in the mouth, and can be very difficult for beginning cuppers to identify. It is useful to think about the viscosity or thickness of the coffee, and concentrate on degree to which the coffee has a physical presence. Cupping a Sulawesi versus a Mexican coffee can illustrate the range of body quite clearly.

Sweetness:

One of the most important elements in coffee, sweetness often separates the great from the good. Even the most intensely acidic coffees are lush and refreshing when there is enough sweetness to provide balance and ease the finish. Think of lemonade…starting with just water and lemon juice, one can add sugar until the level of sweetness achieves harmony with the tart citric flavor. It is the same with coffee, the sweetness is critical to allowing the other tastes to flourish and be appreciated.

Finish:

While first impressions are powerful, it is often the last impression that has the most impact. With coffee the finish (or aftertaste) is of great importance to the overall quality of the tasting experience, as it will linger long after the coffee has been swallowed. Like a great story, a great cup of coffee needs a purposeful resolution. The ideal finish to me is one that is clean (free of distraction), sweet, and refreshing with enough endurance to carry the flavor for 10-15 seconds after swallowing. A champion finish will affirm with great clarity the principal flavor of the coffee, holding it aloft with grace and confidence like a singer carries the final note of a song and then trailing off into a serene silence.

Coffee Buying Caveat

Buying coffee simply by name instead of by taste from your favorite roaster (in other words buying the same Columbian Supreme from the same ”Joe’s Cuppa Joe Roaster”) definitely has its pitfall! According to Coffee Review, “Next year’s Clever-Name-Coffee Company’s house blend may be radically different from this year’s blend, despite bearing the same name and label. The particularly skillful coffee buyer or roaster who helped create the coffee you and I liked so much may have gotten hired elsewhere. Rain may have spoiled the crop of a key coffee in the blend. The exporter or importer of that key coffee may have gone out of business or gotten careless. And even if everyone (plus the weather) did exactly the same thing they (and it) did the year before, the retailer this time around may have spoiled everything by letting the coffee go stale before you got to it. Or you may have messed things up this year by keeping the coffee around too long, brewing it carelessly, or allowing a friend to pour hazelnut syrup into it.”

Your savvy coffee-buying alternative is to look for roasters who buy their beans in Micro-Lots- smaller (sometimes tiny) lots of subtly distinctive specialty coffees. According to Coffee Review, “These coffee buyers buy small quantities of coffee from a single crop and single place, often a single hillside, and are sold not on the basis of consistency or brand, but as an opportunity to experience the flavor associated with a unique moment in time and space and the dedication of a single farmer or group of farmers.”

Coffee Review: Coffee Ratings

And finally, look out for the very small community coffee roasters that will submit their coffees to be 3rd-party evaluated by Coffee Review and other competitions for independent analysis and rating. Coffee Review regularly conducts blind, expert cuppings of coffees and then reports the findings in the form of 100-point reviews to coffee buyers. These valuable Overall Ratings can provide you with a summary assessment of the reviewed coffees. They are based on a scale of 50 to 100.

http://www.coffeereview.com/about_us.cfm

Bottom line for a certain premium purchase: To find the coffee that will ascertain most flavor satisfaction, seek out beans that been independently reviewed and rated. This approach will, without a doubt offer you the advantage of being able to choose the flavor profile suits you best in a bean. What’s more, it gains you certainty in quality due to its superior rating. The higher the rating, the better the flavor. True premium coffees start from the upper 80’s. By finding a roaster that consistently rates within the 90’s will ultimately buy you the best java for your buck!



BERNADINE