If you aren’t already reading/subscribing to David Walsh’s blog then this post should be incentive enough.
The Other Black Stuff – At odds with unevenness
We should (as suggested on twitter) try to convince David to join the coffee world, because if someone outside of coffee can teach us this much and share this much then think what would be possible if this were his day job!
It isn’t often that a menu fills you with joy. The current menu at Prufrock, however, does make me very happy, and probably a bit jealous at the same time. There is so much I like about.
First of all – the simplicity. How can you not like a menu with only 5 items?
Secondly – the honesty. As an industry we struggle and utterly fail to define the drinks we serve. What is a flat white? What exactly is a latte? We can barely agree on exactly how the espresso at the bottom of each drink is defined, let alone the rest of the recipe.
I like that the words cappuccino, latte and flat white have gone. This morning I went and I wanted a 6oz milk drink. Some would call it a cappuccino, while others would say that it is too strong or didn’t have enough foam. But I got exactly what I ordered and the combination of carefully brewed espresso and well steam milk is delicious. I was utterly delighted by it.
In fact whatever combination of coffee and milk that I enjoy – I can probably find it on this menu, which is quite incredible when you think about how complicated some menus get when trying to cover all the bases. Apart from oversized drinks – is there anything you’d want that you couldn’t get from this?
Some people, perhaps those across the Atlantic, might be surprised at how small the drinks on sale are. I had to smile when Gwilym told me that now that he has a 6oz takeaway cup he feels the 8oz is too big…
My last post on this generated some amazing comments, for which I am very grateful. It has also meant I’ve been talking about and thinking about the change in flavour when coffee cools quite a lot recently.
Something dawned on me – I can’t think of another beverage that goes through such a huge change. (And I’m very much open to suggestion here!) Sure, wine breathes and changes, tea changes as it cools but you don’t get this massive shift in flavour, taste and mouthfeel that some great coffees can offer. This is something unique and enjoyable about brewed coffee.
So why don’t we talk about this more? This is interesting! I don’t mean amongst ourselves as an industry, but to customers. While it does get harder to notice with the addition of condiments, it still seems like a relatively easy promise to make that you can be confident will come true. It has been something I’ve been talking to people more about, and while they may not always agree with me about exactly how the coffee changes (also a good thing) – they do always remark at how much it changed.
Could we use this better, as an industry? To those who drink coffee at home – is that change in flavour an enjoyable part of the coffee experience, or merely something that happens in the background while you drink your delicious coffee?
While at Caffe Culture/WBC Tim Wendelboe very kindly gave me a copy of his book that has just been translated from Norwegian to English.1
I know it is a little way off but I wanted to write something about the upcoming UK Coffee Week. You can get a good idea of who is behind it, what the goals are, and what the first project is from the website.
I am involved as a trustee of the Allegra Foundation, and the roastery will be promoting it. I should add that I’m a big fan of the way that the Foundation is currently funded – administrative costs come from seed funds, so none of the donations raised are spent on anything other than charitable work.
It is hard not to be excited by what is possible if 5p per cup of coffee sold for a week went to charity. I hope people see the involvement of bigger companies as a positive thing in this context, and that they don’t allow this to put them off. I strongly encourage people to get involved as I think this has great potential to do amazing things!
I am extremely grateful to everyone who responded in the comments of the last post about taste and temperature. I learned a great deal and now have some more avenues to explore.
Partway down the comments I was guilty of wanting a simple explanation – a short neat summary that I could tell my customers who kept asking about the change in a cup of coffee as it cooled. Read More
I am not particularly ashamed of the phrase “I don’t know” but there comes a point in the day when you’ve said it five or six times and you feel you really ought to do something about it.
The cause of my embarrassed ignorance: the change in flavour when coffee cools.
Despite the backlog of other posts I can never find the time to visit, I suspect blogging for the next week will probably be devoted to the WBC.
Having said that I don’t know that I will have time to create the kind of coverage you will see on the unofficial WBC blog over here, which is already chock full o’content.
People are arriving into town, as I type this team Japan are at the roastery plying us with delicious things. Other barista champions are visiting or arriving later today and I hope people get a chance to enjoy both London’s coffee scene – as well as the city itself.
Having done these before I’m coming to terms with the frustrating idea that I just won’t have time to properly chat to everyone I want, that there will be a lot of half finished conversations but I am excited to see lots of people again who I haven’t seen for a while.
I’ll try and update flickr, twitter and here too!
UPDATE: Another WBC Blog.
My current iced coffee method
A few people were asking on twitter about my iced coffee method (technique seems a little too much promise for something so simple).
I’m still trying to work out cold brewing (i.e. brewing using cold water), and since I read Peter Giuliano talking about the Japanese iced coffee method that has been a method of choice. Read More »