When I first started drinking coffee in large quantities at around 14 the best you could hope for was filter coffee - if you were really lucky you might get a "cappuccino" from one of those automatic coffee machines which are now so ubiquitous. As a child, with little idea of what coffee should taste like this was heaven. I have stood in many a cold sports hall cradling a floppy plastic cup containing a mixture of chemicals which was almost completely unlike the substance known to me as coffee. I didn't discover "espresso" until I was 16 and even then it was constituted from a slightly stronger mix of the standard chemicals which come out of coffee machines - freeze dried coffee and dried milk mixed with water. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this as an idea except that no matter what the manufacturers tell you once you've dried and rehydrated the basic ingredients they're never going to taste the same again.
As an adult I have worked for two different coffee bars - having drunk first Nescafé instant then fairtrade instant with the occasional cup of filter coffee thrown in for good measure it was a bit of a shock to suddenly be making coffee from freshly ground beans. I worked in total for these two companies for just over two years, and in that time I learnt how to make a decent cup of coffee. What I fail to understand is why it seems to be so difficult for others to emulate this. I am, I freely admit, something of a coffee addict. I drink a lot of coffee over the course of a day - probably more than is good for me and a good cup of coffee is to me absolute bliss. So why, when more people than ever appear to be buying coffee from specialist coffee shops is it still difficult to find a coffee shop that consistently makes a decent cup?
Of the chains I only ever visit on a regular basis are Nero and AMT though if there is an independent coffee shop available I will always try them first. Nero and AMT are the better end of the market when it comes to coffee. Starbucks, for all their ubiquity do not put enough coffee in as standard for my taste and I object strongly to having to pay extra to be able to taste the coffee in my coffee. Nero used to be my favourite chain because they were one of the last to stop you smoking inside their premises - obviously this is no longer an issue as a result of the smoking ban but I still have fond memories of sitting in a Cardiff Nero smoking and writing. Their coffee is always the right strength for me but the quality is a bit hit and miss dependent on the staff (this is true of all chains really).
Recently I have had both bad and good experiences buying coffee - I bought a latte on a train recently which I regretted, and which almost made me throw up it tasted so bad. I later realized that this was in fact nothing to do with the way it was made, rather it was simply about the fact that it was made with UHT milk (a sensible precaution on a train) but I am not used to it and it does taste different when steamed. On the other hand I bought a coffee in a new café in Camden recently which was fantastic - why? Their coffee machine was clean and their ingredients fresh.
Just ranting doesn't really help the situation though. It is important surely to focus on the individual problems and fix them so here is my 6 (quite long) step plan to a decent cup of coffee:
- Use good quality ingredients - fresh milk rather than UHT and decent quality beans.
- Clean your machine! Rinse the grounds out of the handles every time you nock the ‘cake’ out of there, put cleaning solution through your machine regularly and wipe the steamer nozzle off every time you use it (this will also make your machine last longer).
- Don't do too much prep: ground beans only last around 45 minutes at the most before they start to spoil (this is why ground coffee is sold in vacuum packs or air tight bags) so don't grind too much. It is better if you only make the odd cup of coffee to grind a few beans for each cup. Some people will prefer filter coffee but sadly the same thing applies, the longer you keep it warm the more bitter it will get.
- Don’t put too much water through the grounds, putting too much water through brings out the bitterness of the beans and decreases the quality of the crema. If you’re putting the right amount of water through the sugar should remain on the surface of the crema for a few seconds before sinking.
- Don’t over heat the milk and don’t heat too much in one go. Use a thermometer and pay attention. I always heated milk with a Fahrenheit thermometer to 120 deg the temperature continues to rise roughly another 20 deg after you have stopped heating the milk. ALWAYS put some fresh milk in the jug with the stuff you have previously heated to prevent it tasting foul. I used to know why this was the case but I can’t remember right now. Wipe the nozzle clean after each time you heat milk – in some of the busiest and best coffee bars in the country the staff clean their milk nozzle every time and rinse the previously used grounds out of the handle every time – this is mostly a problem of places which do not serve a lot of coffee. Those that do tend to make sure that their staff are well trained, so, whatever I may think about the coffee from a personal taste point of view I’m not about to criticise the cleanliness of chains of coffee bars.
- Know which coffee you are making. If it’s a caffe latte heat the milk first then make the coffee, the steamed milk needs to settle so that you get a lot of milk and very little froth in the cup, with a cappuccino do it the other way around as you want a lot of froth in the cup. Swirl and bang the jug when you are making a cappuccino so you get a good quality of froth in the cup. Again the if your froth is of good quality with small dense bubbles it should take the sugar a few seconds to sink through it. If it goes straight through then your froth is not dense enough. If you are making an Americano put the water in the cup before the espresso to preserve the crema.
Sorry this is so long, I felt the need to get it out of my system.
extended (it closes on 30th November) and just had to go and see it. I'm not sure personally whether I count this as art but it was something fantastic to go and see. Mr Hiorns filled two rooms of a due to be demolished flat in Elephant and Castle with copper sulphate solution and grew crystals all over everything that was left in there. He then emptied the copper sulp
hate solution out of the flat (thus allowing access) and opened the result to the public (Wellington boots are available and advisable). The crystals themselves are amazing they vary in size from the huge o
nes shown on the right to the smaller ones surrounding the bathtub you can just about make out on the left here. The floor of the building is covered in residue which has formed some interesting puddles see right
