BEANS | TERMINOLOGY | BREWING

Spilling the Beans
Secrets to Brewing Great Coffee
Donna Reeves-Collins

Cole & Parks is a company that is obsessed with very having remarkable products that are defined by their quality, distinctiveness and our customer’s actual experience with them. Our passion is having the World’s Best Cookies and Coffee and our obsession is insuring that our Customer’s agree with us. That responsibility requires us educate and help to make it easy for our customers understand and enjoy our products.

“Spilling the Beans” is a concise article on the basics of coffee, and helpful hints on storing, brewing and serving Cole & Parks fresh roasted coffee. In our cafés, we follow these very procedures with each batch of coffee – we never skimp on the coffee. Our customers ask us daily, how we make such incredible coffee and refer to our coffee as “way better than they have ever experienced”. They recognize all the things that Cole & Parks does to bring them their daily “WAY better coffee”. Those secrets are described below, as it is important to us for our customers to be able to replicate their in-store experience when brewing our coffee at home or at the office. Enjoy!

BEGINNING WITH BEANS

Cole & Parks coffee is roasted by experience roasters that have mastered the art of optimizing the natural flavor profile of each origin of coffee we sell. Each batch is roasted in small amounts, with equipment that allows extraordinary control in achieving precise roast levels (specific to each origin coffee), allowing them to roast each bean so that their unique natural flavors can be experienced. The growing climate, soil, moisture, exposure to the sun, altitude, volcanic soil composition - all contribute to the flavors that are “built into” the coffee bean as it grows on its tropical evergreen shrubs.

It is the roaster’s experience, talent, equipment and expertise - that allows those flavors to be optimized and fully appreciated. Over-roasting will cause those flavors to be masked by a “burnt” taste and it is our philosophy that if coffee tastes burned (which tends to leave an after taste) the beans have been roasted too long. We often describe this by comparing it to toast. If you put a slice of wonderful multigrain bread in the toaster, and burn it, you taste the burn rather than the bread – the same thing applies to coffee. It is our feeling that there is so much natural flavor with each different origin coffee, that over roasting it defeats the purpose of finding the highest quality beans from around the world. Our roasters pride themselves in their masterful capabilities in achieving the perfect roast level that allows the richest coffee experience by our customers.

COFFEE TERMINOLOGY

Our customers often ask if our coffee is strong, but actually are asking if it is bitter or perhaps over roasted or too dark. Coffee is experienced through a combination of taste, mouth-feel, aroma and after taste – and described in many different ways. Below are some terms that might be helpful to distinguishing and describing how you like your coffee.

Strength – Is a function of the ratio of coffee-to-water that is used in the brewing process. Our recommended ratios are identified below.

Roast Levels – Below are Cole & Parks Coffees organized by their relative roast levels:

Acidity – When a coffee has a high level of acidity, you will sense a bright, even a little tart sensation, particularly around the outer edges of your tongue and at the back of your palate. Coffee may taste a little “fruity” or reminiscent of a glass of wine – as you may sense some astringency. The darker the roast, the less acidity is experienced.

Aroma – The sense of smell contributes to your overall coffee experience, perception and flavor detection.

Body – This is mostly about the mouth-feel; is it “heavy or light” or “syrupy”? Coffees with a higher degree of oils tend to be more syrupy.

Finish – After you swallow coffee, the aftertaste or flavors left on your palate is described as its finish. Dark roasted (or full-bodied) coffees tend to have a lingering aftertaste.

Flavor – Customers describe their coffee flavor through the combination of its aroma, body and acidity along with the more common descriptors of taste: sweet, sour, bitter or salty. Coffee is often described as Rich (syrupy, flavorful & interesting) or Complex (with multiple factors experienced).

BREWING GREAT COFFEE

1 Always Use Fresh Roasted Beans Cole & Parks guarantees their coffee beans to always be fresh roasted and packaged in high-tech bags constructed of high barrier clear and foil laminates, that protect the beans from harmful oxygen, moisture and light. Each bag has a zip-seal lock and are immediately heat-sealed upon filling. Each bag has a one-way degassing valve that allows the fresh roasted coffee beans to release their natural gasses once roasted, and avoid any harmful oxygen to enter the bag through the valve. As we say in our café “Never buy beans in a bin”. Coffee should be kept in this airtight bag between 50–70 degrees Farenheit. The coffees full flavor and aroma will begin to fade after about two weeks. Coffee older than a month (from the time it was roasted) will lose much of its distinctive flavors, aroma and unique complexities.

2 Grind Just Before You Brew Cole & Parks recommends that you keep the whole bean coffee in the bags provided until you are ready to brew. Immediately before brewing, measure out the coffee you need for your batch – and Grind!

3 Precisely Measure In accordance with the Specialty Coffee Association of America, Cole & Parks practices and recommends using the standards set by the SCAA, for the proper coffee-to-water ratio. It is 2 tablespoons of coffee to 6 ounces of water. With the number of coffee maker manufacturers, the increasing use of coffee presses and making different sized batches throughout the day, calculating these ratios is much more difficult than it should be. So Cole & Parks has made that easy with the chart below. This chart identifies 14 different batch sizes and indicates precisely how much coffee you will need to measure out. Remember to first measure how much water you intend to brew, use only clean fresh water and make sure you use Cole & Parks fresh roasted coffee! Cole & Parks Brewing Ratios   Ounces of Water   8 12 16 24 30 32 36 40 48 60 64 72 80 96 TABLESPOONS* 1 2 2 4 5 5 6 6 8 19 11 12 13 16 --- Plus --- + + + + + + + + + + + + + + TEASPOONS* 1 0 2 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 --- OR---   Ounces of Water   8 12 16 24 30 32 36 40 48 60 64 72 80 96 CUPS* 1/8 1/4 3/8 1/2 5/8 3/4 7/8 1 Copyright Cole & Parks 2006 Formula: We recommend using One (1) level Tablespoon of Coffee for every 6 ounces of water. Directions: Measure the water you are brewing. Determine how much coffee you should use from the chart above. Using our formula, you will enjoy a rich, strong cup of coffee. Example: If you are brewing 48 ounces of water, use 8 level Tablespoons of coffee (which is equivalent to 1/2 cup)

4 Brew & Transfer The fastest way to ruin a great pot of coffee is to leave it on a hot burner. Once your coffee is done, we recommend transferring it to a thermal pot so that it remains hot without continuing to “cook”!

SUMMARY

We hope this information has been helpful and informative. Making a great cup of coffee starts with buying properly roasted beans that are kept fresh in the proper packaging, but from there it is up to you. Hopefully, this article has helped to demystify the secrets of making a great cup of coffee. Start with Cole & Parks Coffee, and simply follow these guidelines. Enjoy!