Can't drop by TalkBass without stopping by the Off Topic session. Nice to read a bunch of you guys again!
I've been a coffee geek since 1975, spending part of my first ever pay cheque on a Melitta drip rig and some crappy french roast. I lived in Tanzania, East Africa, among the coffee people, and have know about good beans and geographic variation since 1978. I've tried every method of coffee concoction known to man. I was a home roaster for years. Believe me, I've got opinions on coffee but I won't bore y'all. Some things matter a lot all the time, some things matter a bit to those is pursuit of perfection, and some things matter to pedantic freaks (who are legion in the coffee world -- a pox on those people.)
I am addicted to espresso, but I don't make it at home because I can't afford gear that produces to my standards. One day I'll have a nice rig for home, but when you live in a city where people nearby have invested $10k or more in magnificent machines, and they're expert in using them, why settle for crap?
For home -- after trying out most of those methods known to man -- I've settled on the french press and a blade grinder. That's right: a blade grinder. (My last burr grinder -- a Swiss machine -- packed it in about five years ago and at that point I knew it was ridiculous to invest more in a grinder when I had by then settled on the french press method -- hauled out the old blade grinder with one wing half-broken and have been using it ever since.) The press is a steeping method that only requires coarsely ground coffee -- anyone who tells you different doesn't know what they're talking about, they're parroting something they read somewhere. You could smash the beans with a hammer and still make a great brew provided: a) the beans are awesome (good terroire, good roast, properly fresh); b) the water is good; and, c) you know from a practical (NOT theoretical) point of view how not to destroy the things that make coffee good (boiling it, making it too weak, too strong, putting freaking coconut oil in it, etc.) There is not a single person on this list who can reliably detect the difference between a french press cup made with a blade grinder or any manner of three- or four-figure Italian grinder you read about somewhere. Not a single one. I would bet substantial money on that, too.
Control over the grind matters quite a lot in the production of espresso, where the granules need to be fine, yes, but more importantly the granules need to be uniformly fine so they pack into a puck the density of which is as uniform as a person can make it. Espresso is a world of perfectionists and, as with any group of enthusiasts, they will crawl all the way out on the tree limb of diminishing returns and, to them, it's a trip well worth it. To most of us though, making that trip is ridiculous. What's happened in this most current episode of coffee fashion (which dates from the arrival of Starbucks onto the scene) is that a lot of newbies, in search of advice, are taking the word of both the cognoscenti and the bloviators (not always possible to tell the difference) at face value, in all innocence, without knowledge or experience. They wind up with a thousand dollars of espresso gear and they're still making crappy coffee. Sound familiar, musicians?
If you don't believe how badly experts can mislead people, or how badly expert knowledge can be interpreted, check out this article on "fine" wine that recently appeared in Vox -- I have no doubt many of these findings would be replicated in the coffee world.
Expensive wine is for suckers. This video shows why. - Vox
There was a reference earlier to the Clover machine. I first checked it out in Vancouver back in something like 2008 or, latest, 2010. Before it was a Starbucks thing. I would agree, though, that the Clover makes a stellar cuppa joe. It's not espresso, so don't even think of applying espresso concepts or arguments to it. For my money, the Clover produces the best cup of brewed coffee that you can buy. Not that you can *make*, but that you can buy. It's a pity these days that you've gotta use Starbies beans in the thing (though I still like their Kenya beans -- they're way over-roasted but you can still taste the Rift Valley in them.) The Clover will give you *everything* that's in the bean, so it will also show you the crappy elements -- as in that peanut-tasting Brazilian bean Charbies is passing off as a good bean... Not to my taste -- I have to say I haven't met a Brazilian bean yet that I truly like, but those bourbon beans certainly have a distinctive profile.
Everything should be about the bean. Hardly any aspect of coffee production is more important than the bean. I'm totally into the geographic variation in coffee and am always thrilled to discover a new bean. In my opinion, the current crop of coffee afficionados are not adventurous enough geographically. Most of them are hitting the same few regions in Guatemala and Mexico. They get African beans from Ethiopia because it's easy these days: Ethiopia has a centralized bean-marketing board. Asia Pacific is woefully under-represented. And what about the truly rare places? India, Thailand, Cuba: all these places produce some pretty cool and distinctive beans.
As for expert resources on the web, my recommendation is Sweet Maria's. They are the real thing over there, the inheritors of George Howell's crown.
