Coffee 101

A majority of the coffee we bring you throughout the year is processed using the ever-faithful fully washed method, which makes incredible coffee, don’t get us wrong. But from time to time, we sprinkle a coffee that’s a little different into the mix. Say hello to honey processing! Allow us to elaborate: What is Honey Processing? Believe it or not, it has nothing to do with bees, hives, or actual honey of any kind. The word “honey” refers to the sticky mucilage (think the inside of a grape, but less fruit) that surrounds coffee seeds. Every coffee begins as seeds...

So, you’re feeling good. After researching and asking advice from your coffee pals, you’ve procured your perfect home coffee setup. You’ve figured out your coffee brewing ratios. You’ve nailed that pouring technique. You’re cruising through those beautiful bags of Crema beans. Then, you notice that your Kalita is starting to stain a bit. Your coffee pot practically looks black inside where once shiny silver stared back at you. There are bean bits that seem to never quite leave your grinder.   “Oh, no!”, you exclaim, “what have I done wrong?!” Fret not! These are totally normal ‘side effects’ of coffee...

All coffee falls into one of two categories: commodity and specialty. Commodity coffee is coffee that is traded just to get the job done--you often don’t know where it was grown, and it tastes like ‘coffee.’ The name of the commodity game is quantity. Specialty coffee is entirely about quality. All coffee is graded on a 100-point scale. To be considered “specialty,” a coffee must score at least an 80. (If you’re the kind of person that loves a good evaluation form, here is a very thorough, nerdy guide to coffee grading.)   In this way, specialty coffee stands as the direct...

BREWING AT HOME 101 Coffee is composed of a world of chemical compounds. When you grind whole bean coffee and introduce water to those grounds, some of those compounds (specifically soluble flavor compounds) are imparted to the water. This process of imparting is called extraction and it’s how we get brewed coffee. The best brewed coffee has an even extraction, full of all of the great stuff and none of the not-so great stuff. A skilled brew is all about learning how to finesse the three three key variables that determine how many particles end up extracted: temperature, turbulence, and...