No Standards: How I Learned Coffee and Espresso

Unfortunately, this story starts in a restaurant, where coffee and espresso are butchered almost as much as any given Dunkin' Donuts.  It is amazing how much of a precise focus there is in the fine-dining industry on everything food and beverage.  And then the coffee is served...

I got a gig at a restaurant in Nantucket when I was seventeen-going-on-eighteen.  There is no better reason to learn to drink coffee than being around an accessible source and working in an industry where the hours are long and full of a unique style of intense pressure.  As I progressed through levels of responsibility in the restaurant from busboy to manager, there was an increasing pressure to learn more about almost everything.  I gathered vast information on wine, specific methods of cooking fine food, and techniques on intricate methods of customer service.  But with all the experts, there was no concrete reference on coffee.

My first manager and mentor taught me how to foam milk.  The greatest and most respected methods included how to create the airiest foam with an inadequate machine.  If you could create enough dry milk froth to cover two cappuccinos, you were the coffee expert.  This mentality cultivated an environment where the word 'latte' sent most servers into a confusion akin to if they were demanded to fetch and fry up a dodo egg.  There was no focus on flavor, just technique based on one singular style.  We broke many espresso machines, used only pre-ground coffee, brewed as seldom as possible, and served clientele that supported it. 

I later traveled to Italy.  I arrived in Rome on my first day and tried to get a long shot so that I could have more to drink while I sat there and tried to write.  After years of using coffee shops to plant for hours and having customers demand more volume in their espresso, I brought my coffee culture with me instead of leaving it behind.

There was better espresso everywhere in Italy than what I had previously tasted.  But my focus was owned by the procedure of ordering and drinking espresso, instead of the flavors.  My experience revealed an espresso culture, one where you have a quick drink and move on.  I also took away that it is not only okay to add sugar to espresso, it is the norm.  For some reason, I thought is would be an insult or inauthentic.  Also, cappuccinos are for the morning.  Espresso is for any other time.  If you had not been noticed as the tourist before, they've marked you once you go for your after dinner cappuccino.  And the cappuccinos were great, defined by texture and proportion that I had before never seen.

I returned to the States and tried to continue the lessons I had learned from Italian espresso culture and found the staples so hard to retain.  No one orders just espresso.  The barista would explain macchiato to me so I could confirm that's what I actually want.  You have to know the cafe and what to expect so that you use fluffy 'mall' coffee terms (tall, wet, dry, etc) to get a close to decent drink.  The smallest cappuccino leaves you with twelve ounces of milk.  Two percent.  How depressing.

The next restaurant I worked in had the highest standards.  They compromised on nothing.  Nothing except for coffee and espresso.  At the time, I thought the espresso machine was a joke.  I knew how to use the grinder, hone in on the specifics of volume, tamp the coffee, and vary the brewing time.  And nothing came out good.  My vast experience of pulling shots did not include any of the most vital lessons in Espresso; I had not been taught a word about the vital and specific details of grind, temperature, and pressure.

I even bought a coffee reference book that started to define the various generational cuisines of espresso.  It even had the first solid description that I had ever had on what the ideal expression of an Italian cappuccino should be.  Six years in restaurants, more years having coffee every day, a great love for espresso, and I finally learned what a cappuccino is.

And with my new reference, I almost completely ignored the chapters on cupping, origin, and flavour, because they all seemed so foreign to me.  Loving wine, I could understand how anyone involved in the extreme levels of coffee could know all the finer things, but the restaurant environment cultivated very few opportunities to use this knowledge or grow in its experience.  And therefore, the mentality became one of maintenance.  Getting things up to par without the resources to grow.  Using pods for espresso because it was easy.  Not extracting positive flavours out of coffee, but removing unpleasant ones.  Watching ugly cappuccinos walk out of the waitstation nightly and making their way to the tables next to beautifully crafted desserts.

Then I wandered into a local cafe by a friend's recommendation.  And the cappuccino tasted like the ones in Italy.  There was latte art, which to me is a universal sign of well executed milk drinks.  I was impressed, and quite possibly found myself for the first time in a long time facing a completely new lesson in coffee.  The baristas talked about origin, how vital the grinder is, and flavours never before communicated to me in espresso or drip coffee.  This new generation of coffee had standards and answers based on specific experience that helped reveal the many coffee mistakes I had made over the years.  The fog of assumptions wafted away and there seemed to be a new generation of coffee, exploding with expressions and lessons that had not been present in the diners, Starbucks, restaurants, or even Italy.

Since then, I have experienced tasting stale coffee against real, well roasted, hand crafted coffee.  I have officially cupped, sticking my nose into the beeswaxy scented crust that the ground coffee forms when hot water is poured over it.  I have tasted many ranges of espresso, and still drink bad cappuccinos all over the place when I cannot avoid it.  I've gone out of my way when traveling to experience local cafes.  My focus is now on the factors and flavours after spending so much time being self taught with errant guides.  I also pour my own latte art when I get the chance.

I'll be the first to admit that I do not have nearly the complete knowledge or precise experience that makes me an expert in the matter.  But I do have a great range of unique trial and error that has flowered into an exciting passion.  Fortunately, I now have a more defined lens through which to experience and share the often misunderstood world of coffee and espresso.  I am hoping that this new wave of coffee is truly cultivated because there is so much opportunity to express the true standards of great coffee and espresso.  And I believe there is a generation of coffee drinkers that will respond positively when given a better cup and a way to understand it.

Theories on Coffee

Theorem #1: Most coffee produced is bad
Coffee is one of the most commonly consumed beverages and one of the biggest commodities in the world.  However, I would wager that if you asked the average coffee drinker, at least 90% would not know what the raw form of coffee is.  It is sadly taken for granted.  Possibly that is why about the same percentage of coffee out there is really bad.

Theorem #2: Coffee is more similar to wine than any other beverage
a) There are certain terroirs that produce the most refined and expressive flavours in the final beverage.  Whether it is Corton Charlemagne in Burgundy or La Esmeralda in Panama, certain locations have that "it" factor that combines climate, elevation, soils, heritage, and care to produce the finest product.
b) Both are fruit.
c) Coffee and wine carry almost identical flavour descriptors.  Anything from the range of flavours to the dynamics of mouth feel, weight, acidity.
d) Although most coffee packaging does not carry a vintage, both wine and coffee are harvested once a year, ideally at a peak ripeness.  Grape farms and coffee farms benefit exponentially by individual attention and care by the farmer working the land.
e) The end result is entirely dependent on the specific methods used to process the fruit.

Theorem #3: Coffee is different from wine
a) Besides the obvious presence of alcohol and the easy visual distinction, there are a few distinct factors that effect the quality of coffee that wine is immune from.  One of the biggest is that coffee is produced from farm to roaster, but is then handed to the barista to execute.  This is much less of a burden than having your server pop the cork.  The finest wine in the world can go bad once in the bottle, but it takes extremes to ruin.  Coffee, however, takes expertise to represent properly once it is roasted.
b) Great coffee is easier to experience than wine because it is less expensive.  Perfecting coffee and espresso is challenging, but at the same time very attainable with a modest effort and understanding.  And doing it 'right' is not as exponentially expensive as it is with wine.  I can pay $3 for a great cappuccino or a bad one.  It is easy to form a strong preference when there is a simply better product for the same money.
c) Great wine is easier to experience than coffee because it is available more commonly.  The technology of producing and brewing coffee is only starting to catch up with the times.  Specialty coffee is young compared to other finer beverages such as wine.  Wine is much more far reaching and has a more developed language and conversation.
 
Theorem #4: Coffee can taste as good as it smells
This is the most shocking revelation to those who love the full sensory experience that is offered by coffee beans and the grinding thereof.  Unadulterated coffee can be sweet, fruity, creamy, and floral.  This is a very interesting revelation to many who do not like coffee or cannot stand it 'black.'  The burnt, bitter, and stale cup has unfortunately been the standard expression of coffee.  And old habits are very hard to break.

Bottle X

Wine is a mysterious thing.  There are innumerable intangibles ranging from the concepts of terroir, minerality, and flavour, to name a few.  The science behind wine is constantly evolving but still there are very few conclusions.  Quality in the vineyard is being rethought behind organic and biodynamic farming.  And technology is at the same time helping produce more consistently great wine while taking the the tradition and heritage out of the bottle.

So, with all these variables in the modern world of wine, how does one evaluate a bottle of wine?  Scores?  Age?  Pretty bottle?  And does that one bottle of wine speak for every bottle with the same label?

Let's take a bottle of wine.  Grapes to juice to barrel to bottle.  How great is this bottle of wine?  To all the greatest tasters in the world, there may evolve a specific and definite profile of this Bottle X.  However, one can also argue that Bottle X is one specific, unbelievable small, proportion of the creation that is labeled the same as all of its brethren.

But Bottle X has a life, a story, a value.  These are all listed in the credits of the movie that is The Life and Times of Bottle X (coming soon to theaters near you).  And this film contains thousands of moving pictures that communicate interweaving subplots that provide our antagonist with a rollercoaster of dynamic experiences.

Along the life story of this bottle of wine, you are going to take a glimpse at it when you pop the cork.  Sure, the wine has lived a tumultuous life, but this is the single, minute frame that you get to see of the bigger picture.  As you savour the wine, you create a scene.  Decant it and see Act One.

And sometimes you see the boring part of a great film.  Maybe it's a thriller and you want to be along for the ride.  Or it could just be that one funny part of a dud that your friend made you try.

But the ending is still unwritten.  The reel will keep going and everyone will have their own snippet in the life of Bottle X.  And maybe you drink the last bottle and compare notes with all those other people on their experience of the wine.  Then you know exactly what that wine was and has been all about.  Then you could write the ending, and it could go something like this:

Fade to dark, damp cellar.  Unknown location.  Sepia tones.  Dripping water on cold stone.  Camera turns the corner.  Buried under layers of dust is another Bottle X.  Fade to black.

And...sequel!

Welcome

Hi all.  Thanks for playing.

For all things beverage that go straight to your brain, I'm going to try to get it back out through my fingertips in an eloquent manner.  We'll see how it goes.

As a student of this World, I find myself trying to experience and learn new things as often as possible.  One great lens of this is through fine food and beverage.  Eating and drinking are constants, a common practice that unites generations and races.  Every meal can communicate tradition, culture, and introduce new flavours, conversation, and perspective.

Along with the science and skill with all things beverage, the endless passionate opinion of the undefinable will continue to stoke the fire that ignites so many to include common beverages as a focus of their lives.