Me and my team did it to inspire and, more importantly, to create the tactics and details around how you, your organization, your startup  can know more about start working on coffee business.

However this deck continues my tradition of training step-by-step guides that give you the exact information I’ve used to run my introduction to coffee class. That includes references like :

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The blending of coffee is as old as coffee itself. Although the techniques vary, blending is used to optimize aroma, body and flavour: the goal is to make a coffee that is higher in cup quality than any of the ingredients individually, and, extremely important, maintain consistency in the final roasted product.

Each batch has it own personality in terms of taste, smell, body, chemical resilience to the hydrolytic action of water, etc., and blending can complete it and round it up or level it off.

Most espresso blends are based on high quality Brazil arabicas, some washed, some dry-processed. They often involve some African coffees for winey acidity or flowery fruitiness, or a high-grown Central American for a clean acidity. Some roasters add a little robusta to increase body.

Dry-processed coffees are responsible for the attractive ‘crema’ on the cup, among other mechanical factors in the extraction process Wet- processed Central Americans add positive aromatic qualities. Robustas are used in cheaper blends to increase body and produce more foam.

Besides subjective quality , blending also assists in maintaining objective quality, because the more complex a blend, the easier it is to maintain constant quality when some ingredients change.

With the exception of a few countries that pay considerable attention to quality, the majority of producer countries often add up small batches produced by different growers to form larger ones of a size required by roasters. Although care is taken so that only batches of equivalent quality are blended, the result of this deplorable practice is often a quality downgrading to a level below that of the best fractions.

Coffee history records a number of popular blends that are published and available for public consumption. Other ‘proprietary’ blends tend to

be closely guarded, with the information staying within a company structure. Proprietary or signature blend leads consumers to equate a particular coffee profile with a particular brand image. Blending requires the expert skill of knowing each ingredient coffee, having in mind a clear cup profile as the goal, and knowing how to achieve it.

Blending may be done before or after roasting. Blending before roasting is traditionally used by retail and institutional roasters. In this method coffees with similar characteristics are combined and roasted to the same development. Generally, professional in-house ‘cuppers’ evaluate the results of the blend, adjusting components if necessary to satisfy taste requirements and standards.

Advantage: Consistency of product.
Disadvantage: Inability to optimize the character of each coffee.

Blending after roasting is the method traditionally used by many specialty coffee roasters. The flavour profile development requires that each individual coffee used in the blend be roasted separately to optimize flavour. In other words, each coffee will have a different time and temperature setting. Consequently, the final roast development will be different for each coffee used in the blend. After roasting, each component of the blend is individually tasted (cupped), as is the final blend composition.

part of ESPRESSO COFFEE book by Andrea illy

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How and When did you first move into this business?

I’ve been involved in Hospitality since I was 15 working in my local hotel in the Scottish Highlands. I started to focus on coffee after moving to NZ and in 2013 became a Barista Trainer for a local chain of specialty cafes. After a few years of competing I was approached by Flight Coffee and joined the team here.

What motivated you to become a competitor as long as you’re so busy in your company?

I’m a big believer in competitions as a force for personal and professional development. I think you learn something valuable every time you compete, so it’s important to make time to grow – even when you’re busy.

Do you had any coffee mentors or you just roll on base on experience and self-learning ? and which one is better in your opinion?

I’ve competed with and without mentors before, but the times when I’ve performed the best have been with coaching. It makes any training more effective, because you have an extra set of eyes on each performance, help with setting up and cleaning up, etc. The process of improvement becomes much faster. It’s also important to have constructive criticism right through your training – When I work by myself, I tend to go so far down one path before showing anyone where I’m at. Then when they suggest improvements, I might have to change quite a lot of what I’ve already spent a lot of time working on. When you have another person or people as a sounding board, you can get yourself to those good ideas with a lot less wasted effort.

Where did you get the idea of competing in coffee ?

I entered my first competition because I had far too high an opinion of my skill set! I signed up a few weeks before the competition and had no idea what I was getting into – I didn’t know the rules, I didn’t know what I was being scored on. I came dead last, but it really opened my eyes to how little I actually knew about the product that I worked with every day.

what did you learn of the competition? why are you competing? It’s works for what? Why you wouldn’t be a judge?

I learned that I had a long way to go before I could call myself a coffee professional, and I’ve continued to compete to prove to myself that I’ve progressed on that path. I’ve avoided judging in the past because I know how much pressure there is on judges to perform well too. I’m still a little wary of considering myself an ‘expert’ after my first time competing – I’d hate for my first time judging to go the same way! But ultimately, I also enjoy the atmosphere backstage at competitions and having the time to connect with the other competitors, which you can’t do so much as a judge.

As a cup taster and roaster, you can make lots of challenges for yourself to keep the consistency stable, is it possible? how the cup taster competition helped you in this business?

As a roaster, consistency is the highest goal for me. It doesn’t matter how good one roast of a coffee is if I’m not able to repeat it. We now have three roasters on our team, so it’s more important than ever that we maintain a high degree of consistency across our roasting – We have strict protocols to ensure that the three of us are operating in the same manner and achieving the same results. Since we started more focused practice around Cup Tasters triangulations, we’ve all become more adept at spotting inconsistency between batches, which makes us work even harder towards eliminating those inconsistencies.

what did you do to find the difference in the those 3 cup at 8 session with a lot of different algorithm? What was your personal method? What did you focus more on it?how you controlling your stress on the stage?

I think the easiest way to control stress is being prepared. You should have practiced so much that you’re almost bored of doing it by the time it comes around. For Cup Tasters we started with very easy triangluations once a week. Once we were confidently getting 7 or 8 right, we made it harder. By the week before the competiton we practiced multiple times every day with incredibly difficult triangulations (tiny variations in the cups, different roasts of the same coffee etc.) When I started tasting the coffees at the national competition, I couldn’t believe how easy it was in comparison and my nerves disappeared! If you’re worried about doing it in front of a crowd, get some friends in to watch you practice.

Whole sensory process and cupping is a bit different in compare to cup taster competition , what do you think and how you can connect them? (For example maybe somebody is really good in cupping and calibration but cannot be good at cup taster competition)

There’s definitely a difference in how you need to process the sensory information that you’re receiving. When I’m cupping, with each slurp, I’m focusing on an individual attribute of the cup such as flavour, or acidity, or body and assigning it a score based on a mental database of every coffee I’ve ever tasted. I’m also trying to accurately describe the qualities of that attribute based on a personal library of sensory experiences. For Cup Tasters, with each slurp I’m taking a mental snapshot of the cup and holding it in my mind then comparing it to the next cup. You’re using the same data but in a different way. I think for some experienced cuppers it can be hard to turn off that part of the brain that’s performing that deeper analysis which makes it difficult to make a quick decision. I think there’s also something about the pressure of being timed that affects people’s peformance.

if somebody tells you that imagine you can do whatever you want like a dream to design a coffee competition, what do you design? Do you have any idea about it? Did you think about it before? What kind of competitions do you like to have?

I’ve thought about it occasionally and we’ve designed small things to run as in-house competitions for our customers. I think the ideal format for me is something that tests knowledge, service and ability on a level playing field – I love the Barista Championship format, but it definitely favours those with access to the most exclusive coffees, and who can afford the time to dedicate to training – which is not something that every barista has. I’d probably design something a little more democratic, that really tests the skill that a barista uses every day. Something like Coffee Masters is pretty close to ideal in my mind.

As a finalist explain your opinion about these words:

First competition:

Your first competiton is both the most important and the least important one you’ll ever enter. Most important because without it you’ll never compete, and least important because it’s basically just a tryout for all your future entries.

Team:

The most important thing. No one wins by themselves. You don’t need a huge team, but you need a dedicated team. A person or people you can rely on will push you further than you can go by yourself.

How many times will you read rules and regulation before competition?

as I know most of the competitors lose a lot of points because they don’t read the rules properly.I never stop reading them! I have a printed and highlighted copy of the rules on hand at all times whenever I’m training or coaching – Even for competitions I’m familiar with. They’re they key to everything! It’s like being given the questions you’re going to be asked on a test ahead of time.

I always believe in the competition process you must enjoy the journey like when you practice, chatting with the teams, passing the level to the final and even the announcement moment, how was it for you?

If you’re only competing to win, then you are going to be disappointed with anything other than 1st place. I’ve seen people get very angry with themselves or at judges when they don’t do as well as they expected, and it just seems very at odds with what is supposed to be a celebration of excellent coffee. My advice is to focus on the process more than the result, because it’s the process of preparing for the competition that makes you more knowledgable or more skilled, not a trophy. I was a little disappointed not to make the Finals for the World Cup Tasters Championship this year, but when I consider how much my palate has improved over the course of my training, I’m incredibly proud of what I was able to achieve.

After you advanced, what is your favorite part of competition?

I enjoy the buzz backstage and talking with other competitors more than the competition itself – If I’m not competing, I’ll often MC the event, so that I still get a chance to do that!

which competition is your favorite and why?

I like them all really! I like that the results for Cup Tasters are so cut-and-dried. You either get it right, or you don’t. There’s no subjectivity in the judging. But with that, there’s no room for creative expression so the other competitions have that advantage.

some Technical question:
How do you analyze and describe acidity and sourness?

In terms of analysis, I focus on the physical sensations on my tongue, and how my saliva glands are responding. For descriptions, I try to rate intensity on a high-to-low scale, as well as a qualitative descriptor (sparkling, bright, etc.). Where possible, I’ll try and identify the specific acidity (malic, citric, etc.) or at least assign a real world facsimile (gooseberry-like, , etc.)

Light roast or medium roast, which do you prefer and why?

It’s hard to say. I think often those terms mean different things to different people. What I would say is I prefer the roast that delivers the most sweetness without compromising acidity or promoting ‘roasted’ flavours. That will also depend on whether I’m roasting for espresso or filter.

Are you cup and score coffees separate by origin and process or you mix them and cup blind?

Usually we’ll cup by origin when we receive a lot of pre purchase samples, but we’ll cup blind and in a random order – So all the samples might be from Colombia, but region and process will be mixed up.

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Identified by a team of University of Miami researchers in 1996, umami is our fifth taste — the long-lost counterpart of four other tastes with which we are far more familiar, sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Since the research team published its findings in 2000, umami has seized the interest of other scientists, health professionals, food manufacturers and chefs around the world. Many people struggle to define umami, often calling it savory, meaty or rich. They try to explain it by referring to food examples of umami: a golden chicken soup, roasted shiitake mushrooms or navy beans simmered with the bone of a well-cured ham. Even though it wouldn’t be any easier to describe salty or sweet without referring to the way those tastes are represented in certain foods, umami comes off as somehow more exotic. That explains why some consumers are compelled and others leery about the sudden wave of interest in all things umami. “Some people think of umami as a newfangled, overly scientific term that they don’t need,” says Fuchsia Dunlop, author of Land of Plenty (W. W. Norton, 2003) — a Sichuan cookbook — and an expert on both cooking and current events in China. “But I think it’s tremendously useful because it explains so much of what we already know about traditional cooking. We’re just using the Japanese word for it. That makes it sound foreign, but it’s not foreign at all.”

What Is Umami?

As far back as 3,000 years ago, Greeks and Romans were carefully boosting what we now know as the umami in their foods by using a condiment made from fermented fish sauce. In 1825, in his famous treatise The Physiology of Taste, French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin offered the word “osmasome” for rich, meaty tastes, and he predicted that future chemists would probably figure out what triggered it. Finally, in the 20th century, Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda hung a lasting moniker on the taste and determined its source. In 1908, Ikeda began trying to replicate the flavor of a traditional soup he made from boiled kombu (one of the sea vegetables often called seaweed) and dried tuna. He mixed together salty, sweet, bitter and sour, but it was something altogether different. In his lab, he finally managed to isolate the substance that gave the broth its distinctive taste: glutamate, the most plentiful of the 20 amino acids that make up proteins. Ikeda named the taste of glutamate “umami,” most simply translated as “delicious.” (The flavor enhancer monosodium glutamate, or MSG, is the sodium salt of glutamate. Comprising water, sodium and glutamate, MSG acts on the same receptors as glutamate. For more, see “MSG: Cooks’ Cocaine?” in the sidebar.) Other scientists soon built upon Ikeda’s discovery with new revelations. Not only do other amino acids trigger this deliciousness, but there is also a second group of compounds that build the effect. These are nucleotides, the molecular building blocks of RNA and DNA, found in a wide range of foods, including shellfish, pork and mushrooms. They impart some umami on their own, but more important, they magnify the umami of foods rich in glutamates and other amino acids — foods like chicken, tomatoes, aged cheeses, fresh corn and almonds. When nucleotide-rich foods are added to foods rich in amino acids, the result is a flavorful synergy that heightens the drama. “That’s the key to umami cooking,” says chef David Kasabian, coauthor with his wife, Anna, of The Fifth Taste: Cooking with Umami (Universe, 2005), a virtual umami bible with scientific explanations, recipes from America’s top chefs, and the Kasabians’ own umami-accelerated versions of classics like meatloaf and chicken in wine. “When you put the basic umami and the synergizing umami together, the effect isn’t just additive — it’s multiplied. A basic tomato sauce has lots of umami, but when you add mushrooms, it has considerably more.”

Umami Flavor

Over the course of the past decade, scientists have discovered receptors housed in our taste buds that respond specifically to umami, just as there are receptors for sweet, salty, sour and bitter. When these receptors bind to glutamates and certain other amino acids and nucleotides, they send a signal to the brain. That signal combines with signals triggered by savory aromas to create a highly pleasant sensation concentrated in the orbitofrontal cortex, the section of the brain right above the eyes. “Umami is a separate taste quality mediated by separate receptors, “And we like the taste. It’s a savory, yummy quality.” The fact that our bodies are designed to recognize and enjoy umami tells us that foods with naturally occurring umami are good for us. “There aren’t that many taste receptors in the mouth, so one has to assume that there’s a long-term biological interest in detecting umami, Our sense of taste is a highly evolved mechanism that signals what we should and should not eat. All humans respond positively to the taste of sweets because sweet foods are a reliable source of calories. We may wish we could turn off this particular mechanism when coworkers leave a platter of brownies near the coffeemaker, but our foraging forebears relied on the instinctual preference for sweets to identify good sources of food energy.

We respond positively to the taste for salt because it contains minerals that help our bodies maintain a proper electrolyte balance.

We respond negatively — at least as infants — to bitter and sour, because those tastes warned early humans that something might be poisonous, unripe or spoiled. As adults, most of us enjoy bitter and sour flavors in small quantities that help heighten or highlight other flavors and aromas. Many researchers now believe that humans developed a taste for umami because it signals the presence of protein. The foods packing the greatest umami punch are the ones that provide proteins broken down into free amino acids. These “free” glutamates and other amino acids are created by fermenting, aging, toasting, roasting, braising, stewing — any process that breaks complete proteins into their constituent parts. Thus, an aged steak has more umami than a fresh one; raw eggs have umami but considerably more when cooked; winter squash goes wild with umami when slowly roasted. But some foods such as corn and peas are packed with umami when fresh. (For more foods teeming with umami, see “Umami Shopping List,” in the sidebar.) When we eat whole proteins, our digestive systems burn a lot of energy breaking them down into amino acids. The amino acids in umami-rich foods are already in a free state, so they are more quickly and easily digested than complete proteins. As the Kasabians put it, “Umami is the taste of amino acids that are ready for our bodies to use.” The free glutamates are immediately put to work in the intestines, where they fuel the overall digestive process.

Mindful Eating and Umami

Understanding these umami mechanisms isn’t just interesting — it’s useful, says Edmund Rolls, DSc, a professor at the Oxford Centre for Computational Neuroscience, who researches taste mechanisms and the brain. “Many people are interested in knowing what makes food palatable,” says Rolls, in part because this helps “promote the eating of good food at the expense of unhealthy foods.” Understanding the science of cuisine is important in this regard, he explains, because it helps us develop food preparations that are appropriate. “For instance,” he says, “some people don’t like the taste of nutritionally good foods like green vegetables, but you can enhance the flavor of these foods by adding umami.” By choosing foods that taste good — and understanding how to make them taste even better — we’re simply relying on the body’s basic wisdom to maintain a balanced diet and a healthy weight. Jacqueline Marcus, RD, a nutritionist who practices in Northfield, Ill., points out that we are born with basic instincts telling us which foods are good for us and how much we need to eat of them. Just watch how a baby gulps umami-rich breast milk, then pushes away from the mother when full. “The umami taste helps provide you with the sensation of being fed,” says Marcus, who’s been researching and working with umami for 12 years. “That’s essential in weight management. Foods with umami flavor are satisfying to the palate and support satiety, or fullness.” In a culture looking for ways to amplify eating pleasures without amplifying its already significant weight problems, that’s umami wisdom worth trying. This article has been updated. It originally appeared in the May 2012 issue of Experience Life magazine.

Umami Foods

Umami-rich foods are delicious on their own and can also make healthy foods like basic vegetables and legumes taste more enticing. In The Fifth Taste: Cooking with Umami (Universe, 2005), chef David Kasabian and his journalist wife, Anna, break down umami ingredients into two groups: basic umami (foods that impart umami through amino acids like glutamates) and synergizing umami (foods that add some umami and, especially, amplify the umami taste of the first group). Many foods have both basic and synergizing umami compounds. Here are a few examples:

Basic Umami

Corn, peas, tomatoes, red bell peppers, winter squash Almonds, walnuts and other tree nuts Sea vegetables, Duck, turkey, chicken (especially mature birds and dark meat), fresh and cured pork products (which are also synergizing), aged steaks, Aged and blue-veined cheeses, Fin fish (especially smoked, dried or pickled), fish sauce, and shellfish (which are also synergizing)

Fermented soy products like

soy sauce, tempeh and miso, Legumes, Black olives, Pickled plums (ume) and many other pickled vegetables and fruits

Synergizing Umami

Mushrooms, truffles and other fungi — the darker, the better, Pork, beef, lamb, turkey and chicken, Shellfish, especially oysters and uni (sea urchin), Darker-fleshed fin fish such as tuna, mackerel and salmon, Many sea vegetables, including nori and wakame

MSG: Cooks’ Cocaine?

Monosodium glutamate (MSG), the much-maligned flavor additive, has been at the center of a food controversy for years. Here’s what you need to know to make up your own mind about whether to enjoy MSG or avoid it. Shortly after chemist Kikunae Ikeda discovered that glutamates were the source of the deliciousness — what he dubbed the umami — in his soup, a Japanese company used his patent to manufacture a substance that would change cuisines around the world: monosodium glutamate. U.S. food manufacturers began incorporating MSG into a wide variety of processed foods in the 1930s and ’40s. Restaurants and home cooks also sprinkled it liberally. Then, in the 1960s, MSG experienced a public-relations disaster. The New England Journal of Medicine printed a letter from a physician who said that he and his friends felt dizzy and headachy after eating in Chinese restaurants and suggested that MSG might be the cause. Subsequent studies supported this conjecture, but most involved injecting rats with massive doses of MSG — far more than a person would ever eat. Some studies have not found any evidence that MSG poses a problem to most people who eat normally. Scientists who study umami insist that MSG is the same as the naturally occurring free glutamates that are found in food. Still, many health-conscious and food-sensitive individuals remain wary of MSG, noting that eating it makes them feel dehydrated, brain fogged, puffy or headachy. Those who suffer from migraines, chemical sensitivities or ADD/ADHD are often counseled by their health professionals to stay away from MSG at all costs. And many culinary experts see MSG as a cheap stand-in for high-quality ingredients and good preparation — the mark of a compromised food product or dish. “MSG is a shortcut to good taste,” says Chinese cooking expert Fuchsia Dunlop. “People often take greasy, junky food and add MSG to make it appealing. I call it the ‘cook’s cocaine.” Some processed foods that don’t contain MSG are full of other substances that deliver free glutamates: textured protein, sodium caseinate, hydrolyzed yeast and many more. Like MSG, the presence of such ingredients may indicate that whatever natural flavor these foods might once have had can no longer stand on their own. “Processed food is so handled and heated and stored that the natural amino acids are gone,” says David Kasabian, who with his wife, Anna, wrote The Fifth Taste: Cooking with Umami (Universe, 2005). “They have to include these ingredients to compensate for that loss.” Maggie Ward, RD, nutrition director of the UltraWellness Center in Lenox, Mass., says it’s best to get your umami from natural ingredients. “My preference is that people eat whole foods for health and healing,” Ward says. “The glutamates in MSG are not the way nature presented them, and I think people are much better off enjoying umami from natural sources like fish sauce, seaweed and shiitake mushrooms.”

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Coffee competition

(some of the information are from WCE site)

Coffee competitions are the epitome of the best coffee. Whether it’s a regional, national, or world championship, they will stretch you to your limit. By participating, you’ll hone your skills and discover how great your love for coffee really is. I’ve had the privilege to compete, judge, and coach in barista, brew, Aeropress, cup taster, roast, Cezve and latte art competitions over the last ten years. Getting up on that stage is no easy task, but I believe any coffee person who sets their mind to it can achieve it. Because competing is about more than technical skills. It’s also about attitude, mentality, lifestyle and what ability that you have but you don’t know, you can just sort it out by being on stage. So let me take you through what attitudes you need to achieve your best – whether in any kind of competition or simply in your daily coffee shop routine.

First, you need to know the most important coopetition in all around the world and the old one is which holding by WCE,

World Coffee Events (WCE) is an event management organization registered in Dublin, Ireland.  WCE was originally founded in 2011 by the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe and the Specialty Coffee Association of America, which have since unified to become the Specialty Coffee Association. The current WCE portfolio includes the World Barista Championship, the World Cup Tasters Championship, the World Latte Art Championship, the World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship, and the World Brewers Cup, as well as features such as All-Stars, the Espresso Bar, and the Brew Bar. WCE is supported by a robust group of volunteer committee members. These members collaborate on, generate, and refine many materials, processes, and documents that help support our mission statement. WCE’s committees are critical to helping develop and shape the organization, and in supporting our strategic initiatives. Annual working groups may also be formed to help with specific projects related to one activity or championship. A volunteer leadership team designed to address competition needs and questions at the highest levels, interfacing with the SCA Board of Directors and other internal and external groups. Assists in developing format and strategic planning for all of the championships, including rules, regulations, judges, communications, and marketing. This group brings together long-time competition experts from many perspectives, meeting throughout the year to consider how to keep the competition formats moving forward with our industry.

The World Barista Championship (WBC) 

is the preeminent international coffee competition produced annually by World Coffee Events (WCE). The competition focuses on promoting excellence in coffee, advancing the barista profession, and engaging a worldwide audience with an annual championship event that serves as the culmination of local and regional events around the globe. Each year, more than 50 champion competitors each prepare 4 espressos, 4 milk drinks, and 4 original signature drinks to exacting standards in a 15-minute performance set to music. WCE Certified Judges from around the world evaluate each performance on the taste of beverages served, cleanliness, creativity, technical skill, and overall presentation. The ever-popular signature beverage allows baristas to stretch their imagination and the judges’ palates to incorporate a wealth of coffee knowledge into an expression of their individual tastes and experiences. The top 15 highest-scoring competitors from the first round, plus wild-card winner from the Team Competition, advance to a semifinal round. The top 6 competitors in the semifinal round advance to the finals round, from which one winner is named World Barista Champion!

The World Latte Art Championship

highlights artistic expression in a competition platform that challenges the barista in an on-demand performance. For the preliminary round of the championship, baristas produce a single creative latte pattern at the Art Bar, then move to the WLAC stage to create two identical free-pour lattes and two identical designer lattes (which allow etching and decoration). Scores from the Art Bar and Stage are combined, and the top 12 qualify for the semi-final round, where competitors make two matching sets of different free-pour latte patterns, and one matching set of free-pour macchiatos. The top six semi-finals competitors qualify for the final round, where competitors make two different matching sets of free-pour latte patterns and one matching set of designer lattes. The top-scoring competitor in the final round is declared the World Latte Art Champion. Baristas are judged based on visual attributes, creativity, identical patterns in the pairs, the contrast in patterns, and overall performance

The World Cup Tasters Championship

awards the professional coffee cupper who demonstrates speed, skill, and accuracy in distinguishing the taste differences in specialty coffees. Coffees of the world have many distinct taste characteristics and in this competition format, the objective is for the cupper to discriminate between the different coffees. Three cups are placed in a triangle, with 2 cups being identical coffees and one cup being a different coffee. Using skills of smell, taste, attention, and experience, the cupper will identify the odd cup in the triangle as quickly as they can. A total of 8 triangles are placed in each round. The top 8 competitors with the most correct answers and the fastest time proceed to the next Semi-Finals round. Then the top 4 will compete again in the Finals round to determine the next World Cup Tasters Champion.

The World Coffee Roasting Championship

debuted 2013 in Nice, France. In this 3-stage event, competitors are evaluated on their performance evaluating the quality of green coffee (coffee grading), developing a roasting profile that best accentuates the desirable characteristics of that coffee, and on the ultimate cup quality of coffees roasted.

The world Cezve/Ibrik Championship

(also known as ibrik) is a pot designed A still from a previous Cezve/Ibrik Championship specifically designed to make a particular style of coffee that is largely consumed in parts of Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, The body can be made of metal, brass, copper, or ceramic but it features a distinctive long handle and a brim that is designed to serve the coffee. This event showcases the Cezve or Ibrik preparation of brewing coffee, set in a competition format that celebrates the cultural tradition. In this championship, it is encouraged that the competitors bring their own style/cultural element to their performance to showcase what is one of the oldest forms of preparing coffee.

The World Brewers Cup competition

highlights the craft of filter coffee brewing by hand, promoting manual coffee brewing and service excellence. In this Championship, competitors prepare and serve three individual beverages for a panel of judges. The Championship consists of two rounds: a first-round and a finals round. During the first round competitors complete two coffee services – a compulsory service and an open service. For the compulsory service, competitors prepare three beverages utilizing whole bean coffee provided to them by the competition. For the open service, competitors may utilize any whole bean coffee of their choosing and must also accompany their beverage preparation with a presentation. The six competitors with the highest score from the first round will go on to compete in the finals round consisting exclusively of an open service. One competitor from the final round will be named the World Brewers Cup Champion.

The World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship

promotes innovative beverage recipes that showcase coffee and spirits in a competition format. This competition highlights the barista/barkeeper’s mixology skills in a setting where coffee and alcohol go perfectly together. From the traditional Irish Coffee (with whiskey and coffee). to unique cocktail combinations. During the preliminary round, competitors produce four drinks – two identical hot/warm coffee and alcohol-based designer drinks, and two identical cold coffee and alcohol-based designer drinks. The six competitors with the highest preliminary round scores will compete in the final round. The final round requires competitors to produce two Irish Coffees and two coffee-and-alcohol-based designer drinks. The highest-scoring final round competitor will be named the World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion.

Now, this is all about what happened on the coffee planet about coffee competition, there is a lot of fun competition in another hand like barista League (the Barista League isn’t like the Barista Championship. But it isn’t trying to be. The latter requires extensive preparation, customer service, and 12 truly special drinks. It’s a rigorous competition that demands everything a competitor’s got. But the League will put baristas on the spot, quizzing them on general knowledge, asking them to develop recipes for mystery coffees, and seeing how many coffees they can make with alternative milk within a time limit. It’s challenging, and it’s also fun)

and also coffee masters (Coffee Masters is the fast-paced, multi-discipline global barista tournament taking place twice a year. The competition sees some of the world’s best baristas compete head-to-head in a series of disciplines for the prestigious Coffee Masters title and a £5,000 cash prize in London, and $5,000 cash prize in Los Angeles.)

Now chose one, do you want to compete or no? do you want to make a challenge for yourself? Or may you want to be a judge? all are fun but serious at that moment.

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The pour over method involves pouring hot water through coffee grounds in a filter. The water way  through the coffee and filter into a mug. Pour over is also known as filter coffee or drip coffee, although these terms also include batch brewers. What sets pour over apart is that it is made by hand-pouring the water over the coffee. So you may hear it called hand brewing or manual brewing.

Pour over accentuates intricate flavors when compared to other brewing methods, because of the shape and the material of filter,  This makes it a popular choice for single origin coffees, since it allows the flavors and aromas to shine.

Good filter coffee is clean, clear, and consistent. This is because the water is allowed to extract coffee oils and fragrances in its own consistent time and at its own pressure. The filter then catches a lot of oils, leading to a clean cupAnd because this is an infusion method, it is a little more efficient at extracting coffee solubles than immersion techniques such as the French press. Immersion methods cause the water to become saturated, whereas pour overs use a constant supply of fresh water.all infusion methods (including espresso) run the risk of channeling, where a stream of water finds an easy route around the ground coffee. This happens when there are clumps of coffee or the grounds are unevenly distributed, and it means that some of the coffee doesn’t get extracted. So it’s important that baristas learns how to pour in a way that evenly immerses the grounds in water.Because it is difficult to replicate a method precisely every time, some café owners and brewers prefer to use SCA-approved batch brewers instead. These machines bring automation to the method and can have more consistent results than a hand pour. We need some equipment for make the best cup of coffee easy : •     Brewing Devices, •    Filters, •       Scales, •       Scales, •       Kettles

It may seem like there is an unending amount of options for pour over equipment, but you don’t need to invest in all of it. You can start with a simple device and some filters and then add more equipment as you choose.

Brewing Devices

A dripper is simply the piece of equipment that holds the coffee filter and grounds coffee. The V60, Kalita Wave are popular choices. All three sit on top of the cup or carafe and they may seem interchangeable.The Chemex is another popular option with its own design features that impact the cup. The advantage of using any one of these devices is that they are widely available, simple to use, and have filters made specifically for their design.

Filters

Barista tip: you should always rinse your filter before you brew! This rinses out the paper taste and dust and warms up your brewer. You may think that the filter is the least controversial part of brewing, but there is even some debate here. Specific filters are designed to fit different devices and allow efficient extraction. The Chemex uses paper filters that are 20–30% heavier than other filters, which the manufacturers say retain more of the suspended oils during the brewing process. Some claim that paper filters create an undesirable papery taste, particularly if they are bleached. To avoid this, rinse your filter before using it. Cloth filters have been around for a long time and some people prefer them because they don’t affect flavor and have a smaller environmental impact than paper.

Scales

but if you want to create consistently good coffee, they are. Its important to know exactly how much of each you used in a good (or bad) brew can allow you to replicate the recipe or tweak it for even better results.

Kettles

Electric kettel, stove-top, or a batch water heater is up to you but look into the reviews of specific kettles and keep a thermometer handy to keep an eye on the temperature.

Roast Profile

Because the pour over method works well to highlight subtle flavor notes and aromas, you may want to choose a light roast. Beans that are roasted to this profile are the brightest, with the most acidic flavors. Chad says “Light roasts showcase the most authentic quality of the coffee.”Of course, you can go medium or even dark if you prefer, but this brewing method is complementary to subtle flavors.

Grind Size

The size of your grounds affects the rate of extraction. Pour over is a an infusion method, which means that the coffee and water are in contact for a shorter amount of time than in an immersion method, but longer than in an espresso. So you want the coffee to have enough surface area to extract before the water filters through into the cup, but not so much that they under-extract and produce a bitter brew.What this means is that you should start with a medium grind size and then evaluate your cup and tweak it as needed. If it’s a little watery or sour, try a finer grind. If it’s bitter and lacking sweet notes, try going a little coarser. And invest in a quality grinder to make sure your coffee particles are all ground to the same size. Lower-quality grinders may produce inconsistently ground coffee and a lot of “fines”. These tiny fragments of coffee extract very quickly and can throw your cup off. “We use finely ground, not coarse,The advantage of the fine grind size is that you increase the body and aroma of the coffee. And if you are going to make a fast extraction, you’re also going to get the sweetness and the cleanliness that you want in the cup.”

What Ratio of Coffee to Water Should You Use?

You’ll see a lot of different suggested ratios out there, but 1litter water and 55-60gr coffee (1g of coffee to 16g of water) is a generally accepted good starting point. Make some brews with this measurement but adjust factors that affect extraction, such as grind size and water temperature, one at a time until you find a recipe that works for you. Then, try changing the ratio of coffee to water. If your brew tastes watery or weak, add more coffee without changing other factors and evaluate whether it tastes better. If you find your cup too intense, consider reducing the amount of coffee. But remember to keep track of what you’re changing so you can replicate your perfect brew when you find it.And don’t forget about the water. Tap water can contain minerals and contaminants that affect flavor, so use filtered water.

Which Pouring Technique Is Best?

Avoid watching too many videos on technique when you first start to brew with the pour over method. It can quickly get overwhelming. Instead, start out simple. Be consistent in how your pour and learn how to use blooming, pulse pouring, and agitation to achieve even extraction. Many people pour in concentric circles, which helps the barista maintain a consistent flow of water. You can work your way up to more detailed methods or break all the rules when you’re more familiar with the basics.

The Bloom

The bloom is the quick bubbling up of water that happens when you first pour. It is caused by the degassing of carbon dioxide that is built up in the roasting process. Light roasts and fresh coffee are likely to produce a big bloom because they usually contain more gases. Carbon dioxide can prevent even extraction because it repels water, and the disturbed grounds can sit at different heights. So let the gases escape and improve your chances of a consistent extraction. Gently pour twice the measure of coffee in water over the grounds. So, if you have a 15 g dose of coffee, pour 30 ml of water. Then wait 30 to 45 seconds until the bloom has ended and the grounds have settled. Don’t make wrong decision ,

Pulse Pouring & Continuous Pouring

Pulse pouring means using multiple pours of specific amounts of water. You can experiment with the volume of water and number of pours. This technique help prevent channeling or grounds rising up the side of the filter. It also gently disrupts the grinds, causing them to move about and creating more even contact with the water. It’s an alternative to continuous pouring, which is when the barista pours the water at as constant of a flow rate as possible without stopping. Continuous pouring aims to keep the flow and saturation as even as possible, whereas pulse pouring is intentionally varied. You can use pouring technique as another variable to consider when adapting your recipe. Different types of pours will have different effects on extraction and therefore have different impacts on your brew.

Agitation

This is simply mild disturbance of the coffee grounds during the brew process. There are many ways to agitate coffee, including stirring or swirling the brew. Agitation disperses grounds that can be left “high and dry” on the filter by channeling. It also breaks up any dry clumps inside the bed of coffee. By making sure all grounds are saturated, agitation aids even extraction. Pour over coffee can be a great way to make your daily cup and it doesn’t have to be complicated. By understanding these key topics, you’re well prepared to make a decent brew and have the tools to tweak it until it becomes a great one.

The post How you can make a better pour over coffee appeared first on Maillardreaction.org.

 Controlling variables during roasting process

Coffee roasting includes adjusting many variables to create your perfect roast profile. By changing factors including temperature, length of roast, and airflow, you can highlight sweetness, emphasize acidity, or create a well-balanced roast. also drum speed, you can affect the amount of time that coffee beans are exposed to direct heat.Now you can change all those variable, Should you roast a Colombian Nariño the same way you would an Ethiopian Sidamo? Probably not.Producing countries have different climates, soil types, altitudes, density, moisture,  – and all that leads to very different coffees. The beans will react differently to heat, plus you will want to accentuate specific characteristics. In other words, you need to roast them differently.So before you create a profile and put your coffee in the roaster, you need as much information as possible about the beans. And today, I’m going to take you through some of the main origin-based variables to consider. At each stage of the coffee supply chain, the moisture content of a green bean must diminish – or the bean might become moldy, defective, and less valuable than before. Ensuring a bean dries correctly is essential in order to optimize its quality potential and minimize the chance of problems.Roasters, near the end of the supply chain, have two tasks when it comes to managing moisture content. On the one hand, they must maintain the lots they store onsite within a narrow moisture range that is acceptable to their quality standards.

On the other hand, and in the span of a few minutes, the roaster is responsible for driving the last remaining bits of moisture out of the bean via the application of intense heat and pressure. In these minutes, the coffee is exposed to the most energy it will experience at any point in the coffee supply chain and the roast is set up for either success or failure.It’s easy to see why roasters should care about the moisture content of their coffee. But how useful is a number supplied by an importer, and how can roasters integrate moisture content readings into their craft? I spoke with Fred Seeber of Shore Measuring Systems, a supplier of moisture content meters, about measuring and making sense of moisture content in green coffee.

There is no official standard for ideal moisture content in green coffee, although the ICO recommends 11% as a good target. However, it’s commonly accepted that 10-12% is a reasonable range. Anything less than 10% is likely to result in loss of cup quality, while humidity at higher levels begins to create a risk of mold growth. Yet a coffee’s humidity is not static. While the pre-export drying process drastically increases a bean’s stability, changes in moisture content are still possible. Environmental factors, such as being in a particularly humid or hot location, are a common cause of this. Before getting into the technical details of measuring moisture content, it’s worth digging a little deeper into why it’s worth measuring moisture content. Knowing this will help you establish protocols suited to your specific needs.

For roasters of a certain scale, it’s simple: you pay for coffee by weight; the more water in that coffee, the more you’ve paid for water which you’re going to burn off anyway. common situation roasters find themselves in: “So, [an importer] sends you a sample, and… it’s showing 11.5% moisture in that sample. Then when your container shows up, that’s 40,000 pounds, and all of the sudden you discover it could be 13% moisture. Well, you just got blanked for two percentage points of water of a commodity that’s four bucks a pound… that’s [a lot] of money.” For the smaller, quality-focused roaster, those kinds of calculations may or may not be relevant. But moisture content still plays an indirect role in a roaster’s costs, regardless of whether or not they’re buying a few containers or a few bags.

There is no direct link between a coffee’s quality and its moisture content. A 10% humidity coffee is not necessarily better or worse than a 12% coffee. However, over time, green coffee will gradually lose vibrance. This will eventually result in the dreaded “past crop” flavor, and this process is associated with the drying out of the coffee. Therefore, even for a small roaster, it’s important to keep track of moisture content. If you paid for an 85-point coffee at 12% moisture, by the time it reaches 10% moisture it may be more like an 83-point coffee. Yet, you still paid 85-point prices for it originally.

By comparing moisture content loss with quality degradation over time, you can make smart buying and consumption decisions with your green lots. And, when combined with water activity measurements, you can even predict the shelf life of your green coffee. Again, precision here is key: you want to track your coffee through a narrow range of percentage points over a long time frame. Lastly, you may think to yourself that you don’t need to measure moisture content yourself, since your importer supplies those numbers already. Fred cautions against this thinking. He points out that coffee is shipped on water and that ports can often be warm and humid, which will affect moisture readings. So, if you’re a roaster in a dry part of the United States but your importer is located in New Orleans or Houston, and is taking moisture readings from lots right as they arrive, those numbers might not be applicable to you by the time your coffee arrives at your facility. Elevation, or altitude, is of immense importance for coffee roasting – but what we’re really talking about is density. When coffee is grown at cooler temperatures (which, most of the time, means higher elevation), the cherries ripen slower and so develop more sugars. This leads to more complex sweetness, but also to harder, denser beans. When you have beans of different densities, they also react differently to the heat. Soft, low-density beans tend to have more air pockets inside them, which can slow down heat transference. To avoid scorching the outsides of the beans, you should use a lower initial charge temperature. We also recommends extending the length of the roast for these coffees. Knowing what altitude your coffee is grown at, how far it is from the equator, and the temperature on the farm will help you to anticipate the density. When roasting, it’s important to consider not just the structure of the bean, but also the flavor of it. And this can vary greatly. “We will never have an Ethiopian with the same type of acidity like that Kenya AA Kamwangi we once had,” Tom tells me, “and it will be very difficult to find a Colombia with the stone fruit, tea-like flavors of the Yirgacheffe coffees.”

you can expect well-balanced coffees from the Americas, with more chocolate and hazelnut notes appearing in Brazil. In East Africa, coffees tend to be clean, juicy, and fruity. Some regions lean more towards sweetness (like Burundi), while others are more acidic (like Kenya). Indonesia is often known for its heavy body and earthy tones. Yet there are so many flavor variations within one region, as a result of micro climates, terroir, varieties, production and processing methods, and more. Sulawesi, Indonesia is famous for its spice notes, while Bali has a more citric profile. A Panamanian Geisha will taste different from a Panamanian Bourbon. Brazil is so large, you can fit much of Europe in it – and it has a wide variety of profiles to match. And as Tom points out, some countries have multiple harvest seasons. it’s the roaster’s job to preserve what makes an origin special and “let the coffee speak”. Knowing the profile of the coffee origin will help you anticipate which flavors will be most prominent – and how you can emphasize them. roast graph data into two types of curves: control curves and reading curves. Control curves are variables that you directly control during the roast, such as the heat settings, airflow, and gas flow. Reading curves are temperature readings. Since the variables are constantly changing, they are recorded as line graphs.

But what reading curves do you need to know? the key ones are bean temperature, air/environment temperature, and rate of rise curves – although you can also measure bean color, air, and gas pressure for even greater insights. Denser, higher-altitude coffees are associated with greater acidity, and you’ll often hear this described in terms of fruit notes – mandarin, grapefruit, plum, blueberry, and so on. This is a highly prized trait, and if you’re roasting a coffee that has this quality, you may want to accentuate it. (Bear in mind, however, that while acidity can be good, underdeveloped and sour notes are not. There is a fine line.) the more acidity and fruitiness you will throw away. A faster Rate of Rise (RoR) is also recommended by many roasters for emphasizing acidity. On the other hand, if you want more sweetness – say you have a natural Bourbon from Burundi – then Willem Boot, CEO of Boot Coffee, recommends opting for a lower RoR. Sweet Maria’s also experimented with stretching out the drying phase of the roast, and found that it could highlight this quality. as for body, stretching out first crack could open up a more syrupy mouthfeel in a coffee. It’s important to remember that the qualities you want to highlight will all depend on the coffee itself, and its unique, overall profile. Roasting is a complex skill; there are no simple rules. These guidelines are just starting points for creating your roast profiles. Knowing the altitude, temperature, terroir, and origin profile is a great start to creating a roast profile for a coffee. “It’s about a commitment to get to know the origin and bring the best to the surface,”

But it’s only a start.

Bean temperature(the blue line)

The bean temperature curve will look a bit like a check mark; once it starts going up (something called the turning point – more on that to come!) it should always continue going up. If not, you risk stalling your coffee and developing bread-like, doughy flavours

ROR(other blue line which is vice vers)

The rate of rise curve is linked to bean temperature, but there’s a subtle difference: it measures the rate at which bean temperature changes. This will give you far earlier indications of temperature changes and, in turn, allow you more control over the roast. It has a very different shape to the bean temperature curve, rising sharply from zero shortly after the turning point.

Air temperature(RED line)

Air temperature is variable measures the environment inside the drum. It’s useful to know because much of the heat transfer in coffee roasting is via air. This line will follow a similar shape to the bean temperature curve.

Key Stages on Your Roast Graph

Now we know what the roast graph measures, you can start reading and interpreting these lines. To do so, you want to pay attention to several key points on the graph: charge temp, turning point, first crack, and end temp.

Charge Temperature

This is the temperature of your drum just before you add the coffee. By manipulating this, you can speed up or slow down the rate of rise and, in turn, choose how much acidity to accentuate. You should also pay attention to bean density and processing method when selecting this.

Turning Point

As you add the cold beans to the roaster, the heat inside the machine will dramatically fall before starting to rise again. The point at which it begins to rise is called turning point.

First Crack

One of coffee roasting most famous moments is first crack. First crack signals that the beans are almost ready. As the beans expand and moisture evaporates, steam develops inside the beans. This steam then forms pressure that cracks the beans open.

First crack it’s a moment that has been given almost mythical status in coffee roasting – and it deserves it. A key stage in any roast, understanding it will give you insight into how flavors and aromas are developing.

End Temperature

As the name suggests, this is the temperature at the end of your roast.

By understanding what’s going on inside the roaster at these key points, you’ll be able to start evaluating the impact of them on your beans. For example, by manipulating charge temp you can speed up or slow down your roast. The duration of first crack can affect body. Roasting graphs may, at first, be challenging. There’s a lot of data to collect and understand. However, as you start to work with air temperature, rate of rise, first crack, and more, you will begin to gain real mastery over how your coffee beans develop during roasting. So don’t be intimidated by these charts – start recording those temperatures and see how it helps you as a roaster. As heat is applied to the coffee beans, they go through endothermic and exothermic reactions. Up until first crack, the beans absorb the heat (an endothermic reaction). The moisture dissipates and the color changes from green to yellow and then brown. The aroma will be cereal-like: think toast, popcorn, or grass. As for first crack, this is a brief exothermic reaction: the beans release heat (energy) in the form of that steam we mentioned above, along with carbon dioxide. The bean will have doubled in size and shed the majority of their silver skin, but oils won’t yet be present. After first crack, it switches back to an endothermic reaction until second crack, the final exothermic reaction (if you choose to roast your beans that far).

Flavor Development

Although we like to talk about first and second crack when roasting coffee, it’s important to remember that coffee flavor profiles are the real goal. And for this reason, we also need to consider caramelization and the Maillard reaction. Both of these happen before first crack. The Maillard reaction occurs when we start to see browning, and it creates many of the flavors in our coffee – especially the savory ones. As for caramelization, it happens a little after the Maillard reaction it as the dehydration of sugars through heating, which then give off the carbon dioxide and H2O that cause first crack. As you may have guessed, this process leads to caramel flavors in the roast – but it’s also what causes bitter notes if the heat continues for too long. It’s hard to predict exactly when these reactions will take place. Joe tells me that they occur as a result of the amino acids and sugar molecules, and as these break down, hundreds of reactions occur. These reactions start at different temperatures, but, due to different coffee structures hitting these different temperatures at different times in the drum, they can overlap. Since it’s so difficult to anticipate these reactions, it’s even more important to pay attention to the aroma and color of the beans.

The post What affects coffee during roasting appeared first on Maillardreaction.org.

Generally, a Barista will need a lots of practice, documents and learning objectives to gain required skills to achieve Training Certifications. In addition we will guide you through this article that shows you how you can improve yourself as a barista and how to evaluate your skills.

In a new effort to document and record the many learning objectives and skills required to complete your Training Certifications. We will post a series of articles about how you could improve yourself as a barista or how you can evaluate your skills or any other baristas at a glance.

Coffee Beans

The differences between Arabica and Robusta, including growing conditions, caffeine levels, pest & disease resistance, flavor, and visual differences. Recognize key differences between Arabica & Robusta is can be from their taste and shape, The importance of coffee freshness, including The use of a sealed bag, ideally within one month after roasting and within a maximum of three months; Grinding coffee fresh (to order) within 1 minutes of preparing; another topic is how much importance of using fresh coffee beans and how to keep them fresh, you need good storage of beans in the hopper overnight or when not in use; for roasted bean Keeping lids on the bean hopper and dozer chamber; Store beans far away from air, moisture, light, and heat; Maintaining a stable temperature for roasted lower than 18 degrees and for green bean 60% moisture and 21 degrees for temperature and should be stable.

Workspace management

Maintains a hygienic and organized workspace that minimizes waste demonstrates the appropriate position for commonly used tools, eg tamp, pitchers/jugs, clothes, etc. you need to design your work area and workflow line to manage it in the busy time.

Grinding, Dosing and Tamping

The importance of keeping the work space clean, tidy and organized at all times The correct terminology to Identify correctly all key identify parts of grinder (hopper, espresso machine and adjustment collar, dosing grinder component parts chamber, fork, on/off switch) and espresso machine including switches (steam wand & tip, portafilter handle, group head, dispersion screen & gasket, drip tray, gauges, hot water spout, on/off switch, continuous/AV buttons) The acceptable range (per definition) of coffee used in espresso, and how distribution of coffee grounds affects extraction. The impact of tamping on distribution, and extraction flow,  it’s important to know demonstrates the basics of dosing, distribution and tamping and their impact on extraction is have a huge effect and has too many variables for making good espresso shot. The correct dosing action has an effect on achieving correct input with minimal waste. Demonstrates good dosing and distribution technique to keep dose consistent from one espresso to the next and to minimize channeling, Calibration of a grinder is the main part for choosing the tastes. The grinder should be calibrated to produce an espresso that falls within all standards. The grinder should be purged between adjustments, Demonstrates grind calibration, using a grinder with a dosing chamber OR an ‘on-demand’ grinder. How the grind affects shot times Identifies when a grind is incorrect and corrects it to produce espresso in 20-30 seconds. The correct use of a tamper to produce a flat and even surface on the tamped cake and to reduce repetitive strain injuries for a good tamping technique using a hand tamper

Extraction and Brewing

Espresso is a method of preparation that takes finely ground coffee, compacts it into a portafilter and forces hot water through it under pressure to make a concentrated coffee beverage , Sensory attributes are used to describe coffee, There may be regional variations to espresso and cappuccino parameters used in the traditional ways but normally I required just espresso with big basket as well as every one know with “double espresso basket”, there is no anymore single or double. just ESPRESSO : Dose depend of basket as you using, normally for specialty coffee it would be 18g – 20g or 21g , you should dose accurate size or 1+- for it. Brew ratio for espresso can be  1 / 1.5 , 1 / 2 or 1 / 2.5, mean for espresso 20 gr in and 40gr out is ½ which is standard and most of the time its work. Shot time: 20 – 30 seconds, you need analyze the key defining parameters of an espresso used within any examinations that you have , Tastes and describes attributes, such as aroma, body and flavor, of an espresso Chooses appropriate terms to describe flavor from the Specialty Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel

Try to understand how regional variations in parameters have effect on last flavor, There are five interdependent elements to brewing espresso: The bean / The barista / The machine / The grinder / The water , Lists of the five inter-dependent elements to brewing espresso which is in upside line , controlling them and know how they have effect on your last flavor is keep your consistency as well.

Preparation of the espresso machine requires:

• Prepares the machine for use correctly and with appropriate equipment
• Having separate cloths for steam wand, counter and portafilter
• Checking that boiler pressure is up to 1 bar before use;
• Warming (seasoning) group handles by pulling a minimum of 1 shot per group before dialing-in;
• Stacking cups on cup warmer and saucers and spoons etc. next to the espresso machine
• Preparation of espresso involves the following steps:
• Remove portafilter from grouphead and flush group
• Wipe basket clean and dry
• Dose and distribute desired grams of coffee
• Tamp consistently, level & ergonomically
• Clean loose grounds from portafilter surfaces
• Insert portafilter into the grouphead and start the pump immediately, as one continuous motion
• Observe the flow and stop pump appropriately
• Serve or use to make espresso-based drink
• Remove portafilter and knockout spent grounds
• Wipe basket clean and flush group (rinse optional)
• Return portafilter to grouphead to keep preheated
• Demonstrates the correct steps for preparing espresso according to SCA standards
• Understanding of basic sensory qualities of
• Under-extracted espresso (thin body, unbalanced flavor with high acidity, poor crema),
• Over-extracted espresso (unbalanced flavor with high bitterness, poor crema)
• An acceptable espresso (good body round and smooth, well balanced flavor (acidity, sweetness, bitterness), good visual crema which covers whole espresso (in line with coffee used)
• Recognizes by sight and tastes the differences between under-extraction, over-extraction and acceptable extraction

Milk techniques

The importance of using fresh milk in maintaining foam standards:

• Expired milk is unfit for consumption and should be discarded
• The time milk is left out of the refrigerator should be minimized
• Stock should be rotated (first in first out)
• Pitchers/milk jugs should be emptied and cleaned before use
• Pitchers/milk jugs should not be prefilled
• Milk should not be re-steamed
• Describes the measures required to maintain freshness of milk
• Milk should be produced with consistently dense texture, with no visible bubbles and a shiny surface. (See SCA Foam Quality Guide).
• Demonstrates the appropriate techniques required to produce correct milk texture (micro- foam).
• There is a desirable range of milk temperature: 55c-65c (131- 149F) (Maximum temperature 70c/158F, Minimum of 50c/122F).
• Demonstrates the appropriate techniques for producing the correct milk temperature
• All temperatures are measured in the cup, not the pitcher/jug
• The correct steps in foaming milk are:
• Empty and clean pitcher before use
• Purge steam wand before foaming
• Wipe steam wand immediately after use
• Purge steam wand after wiping
• Minimize milk waste
• Demonstrates hygienic and efficient steps when foaming milk
• Drinks should be prepared to the required composition and visual requirements
• Performs the techniques required to produce a cappuccino and caffe latte

Barista menu

• An espresso should be served to the specified size, taste and visual parameters (as per SCA exam requirements).
• Demonstrates good techniques for preparing and serving an espresso
• A cappuccino should be served to the specified size, taste and visual parameters (as per SCA exam requirements).
• Demonstrates good techniques for preparing and serving a cappuccino.

Hygiene, health and safety

• Risks related to safety and hygiene should be minimized and in accordance with local laws.
• Demonstrates basic understanding of the local laws that apply to safety and hygiene when using espresso equipment and cleaning chemicals
• The use of safe and hygienic work practices including:
• Washing hands before preparing espresso and after eating, drinking, smoking etc
• Keeping body and clothing (including apron) clean and hygienic
• Using and cleaning machines safely – according to manufacturer’s instructions and local laws
• Using cleaning chemicals safely – according to manufacturer’s instructions and local laws
• Serving drinks safely and hygienically (Avoiding handling lip of the cup; aware of dangers of hot liquids/spillages)
• Demonstrates safe and hygienic work practices when preparing and serving espresso beverages

Customer service

The role of a barista

• To prepare beverages correctly
• To communicate information to customers
• To represent the industry and the work of other coffee professionals
• Defines the role of the barista in the customer experience and specialty coffee industry
• The principles of customer service cover products, atmosphere, work environment and service
• Lists the 4 aspects of customer service

Cleaning, Maintenance and troubleshooting

Regularly cleaning the machine creates beverages that taste good, protects the long-term health of the equipment, and maintains a positive image to customers;Describes the importance of and demonstrates good techniques for daily cleaning of the grinder and espresso machine.

Good practice for daily cleaning of equipment includes:

• Thorough cleaning of the steam wand.
• Wiping drying the bean hopper.
• Emptying the doser chamber and brushing out all excess ground coffee beans thoroughly.
• Wiping splashes and spills on outside of grinder and machine.
• Back flushing the espresso machine with coffee detergent at least once a day.
• Brushing and cleaning group heads of all excess coffee beans and oils.
• Flushing and cleaning steam wands.
• Removing and cleaning drip tray.

Lists or describes the hygiene implications and operation issues (eg blockages) resulting from not properly purging and wiping the steam wand.

The post You need a barista appeared first on Maillardreaction.org.

Finding the good green coffee in any field (specialty or non) is always my concern and also I had problem always for finding what I need but the answer is so simple , I didn’t know what I need , first decided about price, cup profile and target market, then start sending email to all the coffee importers and take their price list and find what you like.

Purchasing coffee is no easy task – although it’s certainly an exciting one. From selecting your origins to managing inventory, there are endless considerations. But your green coffee importer doesn’t just have to be your supplier. They could also be an important resource as you brand yourself and grow as a business. How do you build your partnership with a green coffee importer? What questions should you be asking them? And what do they need to know about you? This is other point of view.

The cuping way is so important.  Cupping: it’s how you decide if a coffee is worth adding to your profile and it’s how the importer determines its cupping score, flavor notes, and ultimately, price. However, not everyone cups in the same way. “It is important to rule out any variable that makes the experience of tasting coffee different from importer versus customers. So, it’s a good idea to understand how your importer is cupping in order to replicate that yourself and to get an idea of what they are tasting under the same conditions,” says Caitlin. Additionally, you should ask about the kind of cupping feedback the importer provides. Will you just get a number or do you receive more information about the coffee? “Not every coffee is going to be a 90+ Geisha, but that doesn’t mean that the coffee is not a really good representative of a certain region or a certain profile. So, what we try to do when we communicate with our clients is go a little past the number score and more about what may be the use for this coffee. Is it going to be a pour over or is it going to be a piece of a blend?”

Servicing Provide is really important for keeping the quality, Don’t make assumptions: a lot of importers will do more than just sell you their coffee. Find out about the scope of services that they offer. Do they provide logistical support? Are freight costs included? Do they have a warehouse facility where you can store your coffees and, if so, for how long? Do they offer financing options? “It’s an absolutely important question, For Royal, for example, if customers pay up front for their coffee, we offer five months of free storage in the warehouse. Some of these options may be included in the pricing while some might be extra. Make sure you understand exactly what everything costs – and how that might vary as your purchases change in the future. you can also offer financing options that will depend on the pricing of coffee and the nature of the account. These services can potentially save you money and help you have better cash flow, so it’s good to understand exactly what you get”. Other issue is about asking the right questions (and at the right time).

As a roaster, your business identity – and your customer’s loyalty – will often revolve around which kinds of coffee you provide. You don’t want to lose customers who love your coffee’s flavor, only because can’t provide them with a suitable replacement when it goes out of season. So, ask your importer about seasonality and coffee substitutions. What are some origins that you can purchase all year round, and what are their unique characteristics? How should you organize your purchases from your favorite origin, depending on the seasonality? When you start to run out of a particular component coffee for a blend, can they offer you a suitable substitute? I recommend  asking these questions in the planning stage of your roastery, even before your roastery is open. If you tell an importer that you’re “looking to open a roaster in six months or eight months,” he tells me, they can recommend origins that are going to be in season in that period. They can also walk you through the timeline of how and when to start purchasing coffee. Another thing that you can ask your importer is how they source. Do they buy from single farms, cooperatives, or both? What kind of impact will your purchasing decision have in the coffee-farming communities? You can ask these questions is vital for building your brand identity and mission, especially if ethically sourced coffees and sustainability feature in that. Yet it’s not always as simple as single origins are better. He says that while a single farm may offer traceability, buying from cooperatives could help hundreds of community members. He recommends having a conversation with your importer to gain a bigger picture of the effect of your purchasing decision.your Purchasing Options & The Receiving Process is about If you know the kind of coffee you want to buy and the origin, how should you move forward? Is spot purchasing an option? What about forward contracts? Is it possible to benefit through your importer trading in futures contracts?

This is an important question,particularly for roasters that are starting out.while various importers offer different buying options, the one you should pick will depend on your roastery and its size. if you’re just starting out, he explains,you can start spot purchases from a warehouse at that time and, as you grow, you might say, ‘I want to do forward contracts.’… That can be beneficial to having a more long-term sense of what your cost may be for a coffee, but keeping in mind that your cash flow and working capital are very important as you grow then nnce you have decided on the coffee and the contract, you should ask your importer about the receiving process. Check the available freight options, as well as how long it will take from the moment you place an order until you receive it. Knowing this will make inventory management easier. Now you can ask importers for the realistic time from the date of order to delivery to your door, and then “backtrack when you need to place the order, and add a few more days to that, just to be sure. additionally, roasters can treat importers as a source of knowledge. Think about us as a resource not just for the green bean itself, but sometimes to give you a picture of any other aspect of the market that may affect the transit time for origins and may affect pricing for certain origins, whether it’s port strikes, currency movements, or unexpected weather, importers keep close tabs on anything that could affect the coffee trade. As a result, they can be a valuable aid when you’re trying to plan ahead. No-one knows more about these coffees than the importer themselves.Finally find out what services they offer. Ask them about these basics and figure out what you need. And make sure they also know a bit about you.

This will help you to select the right green bean supplier and then build a strong relationship with them, one that will support you in making the best purchasing decisions, managing your cash flow, and reinforcing your brand. For traders, it’s their job to sell coffee, But at the same time, I want to have anyone that I work with and their business to succeed.

Saeed abdinasab

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