Ice Coffee

Yes, it is definitely ice coffee weather. Since I know there are those of you out there who just cannot go without your daily coffee intake, ice coffee is a wonderful thing to enjoy during these hot summer months. How do I make it, you ask? Let me tell you.

While the general consensus seems to be that when you make ice coffee you just make a pot coffee, put it in the fridge, and when it’s cold add ice and there you go. Without going into the technical mumbo jumbo of why that’s not the best way to do it, I’ll just put it this way: that’s not the best way to do it.

What is the best way to do it, you ask? I have no idea. I havent’ tried every possible way to make ice coffee. But I can tell you the way that I like to make it. Brew your coffee directly onto ice.

That’s right, straight on there. Let me follow that with these notes:

1. You will need to make your coffee a little stronger. How much stronger, you ask? Well that depends on how strong you like it. When I make ice coffee, I brew three cups of water over about two cups of ice and use a little over two ounces of ground coffee. But I measure my coffee by weight. Maybe you use scoops. Try an extra scoop, or half scoop or quarter scoop (depending on the size of the scoop). Play around with it.

2. If your coffee maker uses a glass carafe, you may want to use some other container to brew into. A lot of cold followed by a lot of hot in a glass pot isn’t always the best combination.

If you have a sweet tooth (as I’m sure many of you do) you can try one of these:

This is my friend Annie enjoying a delicious bag (yes bag) of ice coffee in Vietnam. Now in Vietnam (as well as Cambodia and Thailand) you get your ice coffee in a neat little to-go bag. They also add a nice big spoonful of sweetened condensed milk on the ice before the coffee goes on. Try it at home, it’s a tasty summer treat! Peace.

Mocha Java

So we’re starting to venture outside single origins here at Cup to Cup and are delving into the world of blends. Of course, we already have a tasty espresso blend, but we wanted to look at blends for drip coffee.

My first foray into the blending world has been a Mocha Java blend. Oddly enough, it has neither Mocha nor Java coffee in it . . .

Now technically, a Mocha java blend is made two coffees.

The first is from Yemen. The word “Mocha” comes from the name of the port Al-Makha where most Yemen’s were shipped.

The second is from Java, which is an island in Indonesia.

Now, we don’t have a Mocha or a Java coffee at Cup to Cup, so how can we say we are working on a Mocha Java blend?

While the term Mocha Java at one time specifically meant a blend of Mocha and Java it has grown and transformed into somewhat of a broader definition. Many roasters use substitutes that create the same basic effect of a Mocha Java Blend (the fruity spicy notes of the Yemen complementing the deep, rich notes of the Java). Yemen’s are most often replaced by Ethiopian coffees, usually a Harrar, and Java’s are substituted by Sumatra coffees. Though to be fair, up until the early 1900’s “Java” included several Indonesian islands including Sumatra.

So our attempts involve our Ethiopian Sidamo (I know, not a Harrar) and our Sumatra Mandheling. Since our Ethiopian is a Sidamo and not a Harrar, I think it gives the blend a little more fruitiness than the original blend intended to have. I think.

The first time I tried this blend I had it with a delicious omelet made by my neighbors at Southern Comfort Catering. Now I don’t know why, but the blend in combination with the omelet was AMAZING. I couldn’t believe the party that was going on in my mouth. It was rich and sweet and nutty and goooood! I tried it later minus the omelet (which had been devoured earlier in the day) and it still tasted good, but it was different without the omelet.

SO, having made our first foray into the blending world with a somewhat skeewanky  version of a Mocha Java, the conclusion is this: If you’re an omelet person, this coffee is the one for you. If not, well, it’s good, but it didn’t really blow me away. We’ll keep working on blends and update you as things progress. Peace.

Order Online (and other news)!

Check it out, now you can order our coffee directly from our website and have it shipped to your door!

Also stay tuned to this blog for an upcoming post on blends.

We’ve also got some more exciting news on the way . . . but not yet . . . oh the suspense . . .

Coffee Tasting!!!(plus as many more exclamation points as it takes to get your attention)

Okay, so this image is slightly misleading because we won’t be in Argentina nor will we be enjoying the above pictured tasty drink However . . .

This Saturday, June the 6, 2009 beginning at 10: A.M Cup to Cup Coffee Roasters will be hosting a coffee tasting inside the main hall (concourse? large space?) of the  building where our shop is located. 

You’ll have a chance to sample several of our coffees (Brazil Serra Negra, Guatemala San Pedro la laguna, Tanzania Peaberry Songea) in a variety of brewing methods (regular drip, french press, gold filter . . . bring your own sock and you can have cowboy coffee if you’d like). You’ll also be treated to some very (very) tasty homemade Italian cookies!

Need directions to our place? Just click here. There really isn’t any reason for you not to come, so just come. We’ll be expecting you! Peace.

And Then There Was Blog

Welcome to the inaugural blog of Cup to Cup Coffee Roasters! My name is James Spano, owner of Cup to Cup Coffee Roasters. The purpose of this blog is to share what I can with you about Cup to Cup and coffee in general. I’ll be posting news and events about our shop, as well as discuss various issues and ideas and whatnots about the world of coffee. I hope you enjoy. Peace.

Coffee Jargon Part Deux

   Why is it that my coffee I bought from the coffee shop doesn’t taste the same at home as when I bought it there?

    I’m glad you brought that up. This happens way too often; you have a really good cup of coffee at a shop and decide to buy a pound of it to make at home, but when you make yourself a pot it tastes nowhere near as good as it did at the shop. Why is that? The truth is, just because you buy a good coffee does not mean that you’re going to automatically make a good cup at home. There are several factors involved in making a great cup of coffee, let’s go over some of the big ones.

 

-The Water

The problem

Think about it, coffee is made up of something like 98.5 % water, so if your water tastes bad then it’s definitely going to affect how your cup tastes.

The solution

While you don’t have to buy imported spring water to make a great coffee, consider getting some kind of filtration system that will take out some of those funky tap water tastes.

 

-The Grind

The problem

If you grind your coffee at home, odds are your coffee grinder is something akin to a blender. While these “whirley blade” grinders are nice and cheap, they fail to grind your coffee evenly. With different sized grounds, the smaller grounds extract faster than the larger ones which can result in some bitterness in your coffee.

The solution

Ideally you should have a burr grinder which grinds coffee into even pieces, resulting in an even extraction. While burr grinders are a bit more expensive, you can find some fairly reasonable priced ones at you local kitchen supply store. Do some price shopping online to find a good deal.

 

-The Coffee Maker

The problem

When brewing coffee, water should reach a temperature somewhere between 195F and 205F. Most consumer coffee makers just don’t get the water hot enough which gives you an under-extracted brew.

The solution

Buy a better coffee maker! Look for coffee makers that advertise water temperatures and make sure it reaches a temp high enough for your coffee to brew properly. A cheaper option would be to switch to a french press or manual pourover coffee maker, where you boil the water yourself so you know it’s hot enough.

 

There are many things that go into creating a good pot of coffee, and the above list is just a few of the big ones.

 

“But James”, you say, “every suggestion you made for making my coffee better requires me to spend money, I just don’t have the extra dough to spend on coffee stuff.” True enough, most of the improvements listed above cost money, and those prices can add up if you do them all together. So, in the spirit of thrift, here are a few things you can do to immediately improve your coffee experience without spending any extra money.

 

-Buy Your Coffee Fresh

Buy coffee that has been freshly roasted (such as Cup to Cup Coffee Roasters Coffee hint hint) and try to buy only enough coffee you can drink in a week. The longer your coffee sits on your shelf, the more flavor it loses.

 

-Preheat Your Cup

Heating your cup before you put coffee in it will really improve the taste. Try it! Just keep your cup filled with warm water until your coffee is ready.

 

-Grind Right Before

If you do own a grinder, only grind enough coffee for what you are immediately going to drink, and grind it right before you brew it. Coffee stales fast enough as a whole bean, but even faster when it’s ground.

 

I hope this little article gave you some helpful hints on your home coffee experience. Now go out there and make a pot! Peace.

 

 

 

Coffee Jargon Part One

This is the first of what I hope to be several articles attempting to educate the confused but budding coffee enthusiast. I’ll answer questions or discuss coffee topics that can be confusing or just make general offerings for you to add to your coffee encyclopedia. With that being said, let’s get right into the first topic!

What is all that stuff after the name of the country where the coffee is from?

I’m glad you asked. If you look at the coffee offerings page of our site or other coffee sites, you find coffee from various countries. After the name of the country, you’ll also see more words that may or may not make sense like, Guatemala San Pedro, Tanzania Peaberry, Ethiopia Natural Sidamo Gerbichu Lela. This extra stuff is a way of providing more information about the coffee than just the country.

If you were going to buy a nice bottle of wine, would you pay big bucks for one that simply said California on the side? Of course not. You might want to know what vineyard it came from, or what type of grape, or whatever else it is wine people want to know about wine. This is the same idea behind this extra information on the coffee.

For example a coffee might provide you with the specific region in the country where the coffee was from. Guatemalan San Pedro tells you that the coffee is from Guatemala and grown in the San Pedro area. The coffee is actually Guatemalan San Pedro La Laguna. Laguna translates as lake and refers to the well known Lake Atitlan. So just in case you might be thinking of a different San Pedro, it lets you know which one.

Other information you might get is something related to the bean itself, whether that be a specific varietal of coffee plant (French Missional Varietal) or something about the shape or size of the bean (Tanzania Peaberry, Kenya AA). Note: varietal and peaberry are terms we’ll go over in future posts.

You can also find out how the coffee was processed, that is, how it got from sitting on the plant to being ready to be roasted. These are terms like natural processed, pulped natural, and washed.

There are other things sometimes listed as well such as the name of the farm, or a name given to the coffee.

Sometimes only one bit of information is provided, but othertimes you get all sorts of information, like our Columbia Huila Los Naranjos de San Agustin which breaks down like this; Columbia (country) Huila (region) Los Naranjos de San Agustin (name of the collective of coffee growers).

Go through our coffees and see if you can figure out what means what.

I hope you enjoyed the first coffee jargon . I’ll try to add posts regularly so that the learning experience can continue. Peace.