What Did I Just Order? Part 1

We’ve all either seen it or experienced it; you walk into a coffee shop, stand at the counter, and are utterly overwhelmed with the menu. The cashier impatiently answers your questions which range from, “what’s the difference between a cappuccino and a latte?” to, “Where are the frappuccinos?” What exactly does all that gibberish mean, and does it really matter? Never fear, we at Cup to Cup are going to hold your hand and walk you through a typical coffee shop menu. We’ll explain the composition of most drinks and give you other helpful tidbits of information. By the end of this you’ll be maneuvering around that colorful chalkboard in no time.

So let’s look at the drinks. I’ll start by saying that I’m giving you a general explanation of drinks and what they typically consist of. I should warn you that shops often take liberties with drink definitions which can sometimes be confusing, but most don’t deviate too far from their original meaning.

Espresso An espresso is a small, concentrated coffee beverage. One “shot” of espresso is usually somewhere between 1 and 1.5 ounces. It is ground very finely, compacted, and brewed quickly.

While a well pulled shot of espresso can be quite tasty, many people find it much to strong to be drunk by itself. To offset the punch you in the face strength of espresso, it is often diluted with another liquid. As a side note, remember it’s pronounced espresso. Notice there is no x, please keep it that way.

Americano An Americano is a shot (or shots depending on the size of the drink) of espresso diluted with hot water. While to some this may seem somewhat untantilizing to the taste buds, others find it quite delicious, comparing it to a good strong cup of regular coffee.

Cappuccino Oh cappuccino, you are so delicious! A cappuccino is traditionally a drink of thirds; One third espresso, one third steamed milk, one third foamed milk though that’s hardly considered a hard and fast rule anymore. Still, a good coffee shop will adhere to the idea that a cappuccino is still meant to showcase the flavor of espresso without diluting it too much and serve you a drink with those general proportions (usually a tad more milk and a tad less foam) in a cup usually no larger than 6oz.

Here’s where things can get confusing. I just gave you all this good information about what a cappuccino is made of, but most coffee shops will sell you a cappuccino in sizes of 12 oz, 16 oz, and 20 oz. Now, those of you who are math savvy have figured out that the smallest size there (12 oz) is twice as large as the max size I mentioned earlier (6 oz). Even if  you put two full shots in that 12 oz. (most shops put one) you’re still  way off proportion.

So if it isn’t a cappuccino, then what is it? Really, it’s a latte with extra foam. What’s a latte you ask? We’ll talk about that next time, along with other things like macchiato (another tricky one), breve, espresso con panna, and more!

One last note on cappuccinos. Despite what has been advertised, the drink you get out of the machine at the gas station is NOT a cappuccino. It never will be. When you go to a coffee house and order a cappuccino, it will not taste like what you get out of the machine at the gas station. It never should. That is all. 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.