Tag: espresso

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brewing coffee news

Best coffee machine for home baristas

home barista setup with filter and grinder

I get asked this question a lot: “What’s the best coffee machine for at home?” Just like: “What’s the best coffee to buy?”

I understand why people ask it, though. They want a professional opinion. Unfortunately, it is not that easy. To be able to answer the question: “What is the best coffee machine to use at home?”, I would first need to know what kind of coffee you prefer?

  • Black or milk-based coffees?
  • Espresso or filter?
  • Drip or pour-over, or submersion coffee?
  • Dark, medium or light roasts?
  • Not to mention flavors…

The list of variables that go into making a great cup of coffee consistently every day that also suits your taste is daunting. That was my first impression after taking the first coffee certification course in 2017.

To chose the best coffee machine for making coffee at home, you need to find your favorite style first. Then find the best machine. That said, I can give a couple of recommendations for good coffee machines for your home that make a great cup of coffee every single day as quick as you like.

Most people either prefer espresso-based coffee or filter coffee…

Espresso machines

When buying an espresso machine, do pay attention to the diameter of the portafilter. That’s the characteristic metal “bajonet” that you hold in your hand, where the coffee goes into the basket and that you insert into the machine!

Ensure that this is 53 – 57 mm, which is the industry standard. It should hold 14 – 24 gr of ground coffee. Anything smaller will also work but it will be much harder to find parts, accessories and additional tools. And you will get more tools! LOL

Fully automatic

Don’t get a fully automatic machine! Ever!

My biggest complaint is that they grind the beans for you and they will never chose a great grinder because that will make the machine too expensive. Always get a separate grinder, it will last you 10 years.

These automatic machines focus on convenience, speed and not flavor. So in my opinion this is always a set back that I cannot except.

If you can, then go with either of these:

Sage and Breville are essentially the same Australian company with different brands for US/UK and Europe

Wikipedia

The difference between the two fully automatic espresso makers is that with the Pro version, you get to tamp the coffee yourself. The Impress version has a built-in tamper and will do it for you. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don’t like a Jura, it’s too limited and maintenance is expensive.

Semi automatic

These machines are more my style because they automate some of the actions but not all and give you more control over the espresso that’s brewed. Note that a great espresso maker will cost at least 1250-1500 Euro/Dollars because of the quality of the parts and build. That does not include a grinder!

Your biggest choice depends on how you drink your coffee: black or white. If you prefer an espresso (or long black or americano) then your life is easy and you can chose a single boiler machine. They’re a lot cheaper.

Do you (or your partner) prefer white coffees then you’ll need to think about how many cappuccinos or lattes you will make. For one or two each time, it’s fine to get a single boiler machines as well. If you drink more coffees, say for dinner parties, then you should opt for a dual boiler machine. That way, you can start frothing the milk while the espresso is still brewing.

La Pavoni stradivari lever machine
La Pavoni Stradivari

Manual espresso machines

A category on their own for this is where innovation really shines.

Superkop is a brand new design and fully non-electrified so it will work when the power is out, disaster strikes and zombies invade our homes! It only needs hot water.

The lever-operated La Pavoni is a classic, gorgeous design that does require some practice and getting used to, but once you do, it is the holy grail of many baristas. Beautiful to look at and all the room to add you own special twists when making coffee.

The Flair revolutionized the world of home baristas when it appeared on Kickstarter. It’s cheap, easy to make, easy to use and a great way to get into making better coffee at home. Quality has improved a lot since and you can’t go wrong with it!

Filter coffee machines

Moccamaster KGB Select

The traditional home coffee makers have received a ton of innovations and improvements over the last 3-5 years. Coffee making, filter coffee at home, has drastically improved since the 80s and 90s. Designer machines, premium options, gorgeous materials and very reliable manufacturing mean that today’s coffee maker is lightyears ahead of those our parents and grand parents used.

Moccamaster has been the go-to coffee maker for many official coffee competitions and conferences. They’ve been around for 40 years and are rock solid, well built and easy to maintain or repair.

Or take the guessing out of the way and chose any machine on the SCA certified list of approved coffee makers. The Specialty Coffee Association takes their work very seriously and every machine is thoroughly tested and retested to ensure it makes a great cup every single time, all the time.

I hope this answered some of your questions and gave you a good start to selecting the best coffee machine for your home. Maybe it just confused you more and made you reevaluate what it is you want. Then at least I did my job. Trust me when I say that you will not find the best machine in one go. I will take several iterations before you find what works best.

Most of all, your taste for coffee will change and that brings new machines, new coffees, new equipment and new kitchen setups. If you can, buy second hand on Ebay or your local penny savers. Closed restaurants often sell off their equipment to pay debts. That’s a nice way to get a premium machine for less.

PS: If you follow my advice above and do not buy a fully automatic machine, you will need to also buy a good grinder. That’s a whole new subject, but for starters I can recommend watching James Hoffman’s review video:

Categories
brewing coffee news

Ideal water composition for espresso extraction

espresso doppio

The Coffee Science Education Centre (CSEC) in Australia tested the impact of a range of tap, artificially modified, and purified waters on the flavors of coffee in an espresso. The chemistry of the resulting brews and brew waters was analysed scientifically through gas chromatography with mass spectrometry, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry, a bank of photometers, and a series of pH/conductivity multi probes.

What a brilliant idea! I have long asserted certain differences in the flavors in a cup of coffee to the water used, but never really thought about it scientifically. Sometimes my favorite coffee tasted completely different when brewed at a friend’s home. Other times I simply couldn’t replicate the same great taste for a coffee I’d had at work in my home. I varied the recipe, tried to compensate for certain differences but never really solved the problem…

The study looked at how three elements of water affected flavours in extraction: hardness (the amount of calcium, magnesium, carbonate, and bicarbonate in water), pH levels, and total dissolved solids (TDS).

The biggest effect on flavour was achieved by modifying the hardness of the water

Dr Adam Carr of Seven Miles Coffee Roasters

They brewed an espresso on an industry standard machine from La Marzocco and then measured the concentration of chemicals in the coffee that are attributed to certain flavour characteristics, such as nutty/roasted (2-methylpyrazine), fruity (furaneol), vanilla/caramel (vanillin), and caffeine/bitterness (caffeine).

They found what I had sort of self-analysed by drinking coffee made with desalinated water, some mineral water and very hard (dH) water in my hometown in Bussum (dH around 9-10).

source: Seven Miles

Lessons learned:

  • Minimum hardness of 50 ppm for “best” flavors
  • Higher than 60 ppm has little effect on flavors
  • pH tends to concentrate flavors, much like salt enhances flavors in food
  • Higher pH tended to concentrate stronger flavours in coffee, though not to the same extent as hardness. However, higher pH levels also led to issues in the extraction process.
source: Reddit

Read the whole article to find out the recommended pH and what the effect on TDS was…

Source: https://www.beanscenemag.com.au/ideal-water-composition-espresso-extraction/

It just so happened that the water quality you want for coffee is what Sydney Water is pumping out of their stations!

Dr Adam Carr of Seven Miles Coffee Roasters
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coffee news

So what kinds of coffee are there?

Just so it’s clear:

Great simple explanation of the different kinds of coffee drinks
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brewing coffee news

The math of brewing a better espresso

espresso doppio

Scientists have finally answered a burning question of mine: why should an espresso be brewed in 25 +/- 2 seconds and use approx 15-22gr of dry coffee to yield 50ml of (a double) espresso?

Who came up with this rule and why? Not that I have a specific problem with it but it seems so arbitrary. Also, once you start to make espresso’s a day long, you’ll notice that it’s really hard to dial in the equipment a certain way and maintain those rules for every cup. Sometimes it’ll be 21 seconds, sometimes 29. The grinder is pretty accurate. The beans are practically the same. So where does this high variation come from?

Well, it turns out that brewing your espresso differently yields the same great taste and flavors while achieving this with much greater consistency and reducing the cost per cup of espresso!

How did they do it? Well, they started by reducing the process to a proper model with solid mathematics behind it. Brewing an espresso is basically fluid dynamics of a bed of particles. The “puck” being coffee grinds of varying sizes and water is pushed through this bed at a certain pressure.

These mathematics are very well understood and accepted. So the scientists started with this model, created equations for everything and solved the equations using differential equations. That resulted in a few parameters and then they found the optimal solutions.

Sounds easy enough but believe me the math is pretty impressive, yet their logic is sound.

Turns out if you lower the pressure to 6 bars instead of 9, use 7-15gr of dry coffee, ground more coarse then tradition tells you to and aim for an extraction of 8-15 seconds, you will get a beautiful espresso that is much easier to reproduce!

Don’t believe it? Read the articles:

Categories
coffee news roasting

Best Coffee Beans in the Netherlands

We all need good coffee beans.

We all want good coffee.

So I decided that this valuable guide to the best coffee beans in the Netherlands needed to be updated!

Christian, January 2024

What are the best coffee beans in the Netherlands? Well, that depends a little on personal taste and favorites, but I can tell you who roast amazing coffee beans in the Netherlands and sell their coffee online!

Traditionally, there are a handful established coffee roasters in the Netherlands who have been producing specialty coffee since it wasn’t called specialty coffee. These are oldskool roasters who’ve always been on the lookout for great green beans, source great coffee farmers and who know how to source these beans and treat them well. In my opinion, these are:

However, the whole third wave coffee movement have sparked a bunch of great newcomers with new routes, difference sources, smaller batches and that great newcomer creativity and curiosity. They get beans that are “off the beaten path”, if you will, or from non-traditional coffee producing countries.

More recently, since roughly 2010, coffee farmers are experimenting with added fermentation of beans before drying them. This creates a whole range of funky flavors.

These are, amongst others:

Some are pretty large scale roasters already, roasting dozens kilos of coffee every single day to keep production and delivery going. But others are small, artisan roasters, roasting green coffee beans to order once or twice a week.

I’ve had excellent coffee beans from all of these sources, but three that stand out for me and who’s taste I can still recall are:

#1 Giraffe

Fabulous lush sweet yellow fruit tones combined with a medium to full body coffee, just enough bitters and everlasting flavors. And the smell when you brew is intoxicating!

#2 Black and Bloom

Super super sweet Summer berries!

#3 Nordkapp

Super tasty creamy coffee with red fruit tones and a full body. But the peculiarity is the thick fermented “wine-like” notes you smell when you open the package.

What’s the best coffee I’ve had from a non-Dutch source, you ask?

Amavida Coffee! ❤ Price was high but the rewards were too!

But don’t take my word for it! Check (the sadly discontinued) “Koffie Top 100” from 2018, which ranked the 100 best places to drink coffee in the Netherlands, and a find a place near you that excels in making coffee. Ranking was made by a professional coffee jury and each venue was visited at least 2x to see if they were consistent. Very impressive list, even today.

For a more recent assessment of coffee in the Netherlands, check the fantastic site koffietje.nl by the always lovely Sam. She brings a personal note to all the coffees she tries. If she likes it, you know it’s good. But if it’s great depends on you!

Update May 2022:
Added Blommers to the list after tasting their excellent beans during the Dutch Brewers Cup finals in March 2022 at the Amsterdam Coffee Festival (ACF).

Update Jan 2024:
Added Uncommon Amsterdam, Little Roastery and (how could I forget?) the Village Coffee. Small typos corrected and added note about fermentation of beans. Mentioned koffietje.nl. Replaced koffie top 100 link. Boon has closed.

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brewing coffee news training

Barista ethics, principles and practice

dirty portafilters
An example of poorly cleaned portafilters at an office coffee bar

After working as a barista in various places since our return to the Netherlands in July 2019, I’ve learned that the coffee business is vastly better here than on Sint Maarten. The beans, the machines and the skills of the baristas working there are much better than there.

But what’s surprised me the most is that most places stopped after buying better quality beans or investing in a good machine.

Many places shamelessly use the same beans for espresso as well as “gewone koffie”, the historical Dutch name for normal coffee meaning filter coffee that our parents and grandparents used to make.

Some establishments use at least a different grinder when making “koffie”. But they opt using the same espresso machine because it’s there, so the “koffie” is most often approximated by a lungo.

A few use both a different bean as well as a separate grinder. A conscious decision. But I fail to understand why you don’t simply make “koffie” using a filter method?! After all, if it is about the money, and I think it is, then the math of making a liter of coffee from 57-63g of ground coffee is always better than turning 17-19g of the same coffee into 50ml of espresso or 90-100ml of “koffie”. Right?

And if you decide to use different beans for espresso and “koffie”, because of flavor I assume, then how come you don’t use different beans for cappuccino? After all, roughly 70% of coffee drinks sold in the Netherlands are “white coffees” aka milk-based coffees such as flat white, cappuccino, latte macchiato and large lattes.

I’m often disappointed by what I find in espresso bars during my Temper shifts. Large 3 group machines supplied by a caterer and left to more and more careless baristas who’s level of care and quality goes down by the month when management is not present, training is no longer provided and customers don’t know better.

Granted, many people working as barista are students either during the studies or directly after, earning money for leisure time, travel plans or settling down. They learn on the job while doing it and some of them are truly gifted and highly skilled by intuition. Nothing wrong with that. But as soon as they leave, and there’s always a better laying barista position coming next month – turnover is a bitch – knowledge is drained and whoever is left in charge has to pick up the slack. But pay is low, pressure is high and people don’t seem to care or know.

I’ve been searching for a better place to make excellent coffee now for 2 months and every place that I’ve talked to is stuck to bean contracts, doesn’t want to invest anything further and can’t train the people with SCA courses.

Well you can’t have it both ways! You want cheap high quality coffee fast, but you only pick two at any time. Not three. Skilled baristas cost more, care for the equipment, as well as customers. They know how to tweak the machine on a daily or even hourly basis to result in the best quality coffee.

Nothing makes a barista more happy than a great clean machine, new grinder or a kilo of fantastic beans to try out. Reward staff with perks, not salary. The effect is the same, if they truly love their jobs. Hire a legendary barista or roaster to give a workshop and spark their interest again, relight that fire (no, don’t go there!) and give the team a new boost of energy.

Categories
coffee news

Technical troubles on a tropical island

Espresso machine

At work, our espresso machine broke down. The pump giving the 9 bars of pressure for the groups won’t start. But when manual flushing it works fine. Local coffee machine supplier Autobev says it’s the circuit boards. My guess is they were fried by a couple of successive power outages and a generator that did not kick in properly not timely.

On an island where everything is shipped in or flown in for emergencies, getting spare parts or qualified technicians is a bit of challenge.

We have several choices:

  1. Get full service from local company and have them order parts and do repairs
  2. Order spare parts from US and fly them in to have local company do repairs
  3. Ship machine to US to have it serviced under warranty and then ship it back
  4. Buy a new machine locally
  5. Buy a new machine in US and ship it to the island

Options 1-3 take several weeks, three at best, and there is no espresso in the mean time.

Option 4 could be good but depends on local supplies. On an island that still consumes vast amounts of instant Folgers, Maxwell House and Nescafé Coffee the odds are against you.

Option 5 is good but also takes at least 2 weeks.

We’re still looking at alternatives but lessons learned are:

  • Put equipment with circuitry on surge suppressors
  • Get a backup espresso machine for emergencies while your machine gets repairs
  • Get the numbers of all your equipment’s customer service and hotlines ready for the grab
Categories
coffee roasting

Sourcing Great Coffee Beans for Sint Maarten

Cropped shot of a man's hands holding freshly roastd aromatic coffee beans over a modern machine used for roasting beans

Getting good coffee on this island is a challenge. That’s funny because we live right in the middle of the some of the world’s best coffee countries. So you’d expect a larger selection. Sadly, the opposite is true.

While every coffee selling business here seems to focus on making coffee from cups (Nespresso, Lavazza, Illy) and the local population mostly used to and stuck with cheap, large scale, commercially produced filter coffee such as Santa Domingo ground coffee, very few places have whole coffee beans to begin with.

When I started to make an inventory of the equipment needed to create a Specialty Coffee shop on St Maarten, I immediately noticed the lack of good grinders & espresso machines, long delivery times, uncertain product availability and total lack of good single-origin coffee beans. Malongo, a large French roaster with a presence on the French side of this island (Saint Martin) was the exception. Sadly, their stock was low, the beans old (almost a year after packaging date, no roast date mentioned anywhere!) and the selection limited to four countries: Brasil, Colombia, Rwanda, Ethiopia. And they had just survived hurricane Irma as well but I have no idea how good or bad their stock survived that storm.

So I am doing what everybody here does: if you can’t get it here and people won’t get it for you, you find and buy it yourself in the US, send it to Miami, FL, and have it shipped here by one of the several shipping companies that visit the island at least twice week. Here’s the list of roasters that I’ve contacted and who’ve replied to me they’d be interested in selling us beans at wholesale:

I’m very excited to make a choice from these wonderful companies, their coffee descriptions online give me a lot of confidence that they are indeed “Third Wave Roasters” and take quality seriously. I still have an order coming in from Malongo that will last a while, but their orders take 2 months to fulfill and that’s simply too long. I contacted Smit & Dorlas in Curaçao but they don’t have single origin coffees, only blends – but can ship these in 2 weeks -, and blends are not what I want to serve in the Double Dutch Cafe for black coffees, if at all possible.

I will blog about the progress that I’m making in getting serious coffee to St Maarten and having people take coffee more seriously on this island. 🙂