The staff was measuring out coffee beans for our pour-over service the other day and I recently noticed one had been vandalized.
Category Archives: Coffee
Italian roast
Can you guess what it's made of?
Look at that sly smile. I think she's mocking you.
Artist assistants admiring their work.
This is what happens when you combine 3,604 cups of coffee with varying amounts of milk and Australians with a lot of time on their hands.
How to make the perfect espresso
I’m going to go over a small piece of what you missed by not coming to coffee class today.
The perfect espresso has 5 requirements. Continue reading
Calling all coffee freaks
Want to serve better coffee at your restaurant or café? Wish you could enjoy a better cup at home? I’ve got the class for you!
The International Culinary Center has partnered with illycaffè to offer their renowned coffee “sommelier” training program. Ten years ago illy began Università del Caffè at their headquarters in Trieste, Italy as a way to train their employees, purveyors, distributors, retailers and consumers and now we’re launching the first one in NYC.
Join us starting June 1 for an intensive two-day course where we’ll cover everything from the history of coffee and its cultural significance to how it goes from being fruit on a tree to part of your morning routine. We’ll also feature several tastings and interactive discussions and you’ll get hands-on training on the Ferraris of the espresso machine world.
You’ll pick up some pretty nerdy trivia, too. Like, did you know there are 50 beans in a single espresso and that if just one is not perfect, the flavor in your cup will be off? I’ll be there leading some tastings and I’ll be joined by some very charming Italians. For more details and to sign up, go here.
Love is best brewed cold
Coffee with all the parts you like (rich, full body, tantalizing aromatics) and none that you don’t (too much acidity, bitterness). Is it possible? Yes, with cold brewing, it is.
I’m proud to introduce my official spring/summer (morning) drink. And you can have it too, if you follow the easy and inexpensive steps below.
Yesterday, we went here:
And purchased 1 lb. of this:
Porto Rico is in my neighborhood and I like their coffees (I have a problem with them sitting out exposed to the air, but that’s for another day). I chose the Auggies blend because it was a bit of a darker roast, which is a good way to go for cold brewing, since you still get all of the lovely roasted chocolate toffee notes without the bitterness produced by hot water. Grind (or ask to have it ground) for a french press. For a listing of other coffees I like, go here.
Other things you’ll need to make this at home: large liquid measuring cup (or any large non-reactive container, including a stainless steel pot), another large container (could be another liquid measuring cup), storage container for the final product (glass milk bottle works really well), strainer, any manual drip coffee filter set up like Melitta
Instructions:
1. In a large liquid measuring cup (or other container), combine 1 lb. of french press ground coffee with 10 cups of cool water (I used water from my Brita filter)
2. Stir to ensure all parts of the grounds are wet
3. Here’s the hard part: wait at least 12 hours (there’s no need to stir during this time – you can just leave it out, covered, on the counter)
4. Pour the slurry through the strainer (simple, hand-held pasta strainer will do the trick) into your other large container. This step will remove large particles which could clog your coffee filters and slow the process
5. You can press the wet grounds that are trapped in the strainer to extract more coffee
6. Pour the strained coffee through your coffee filter. This may take awhile depending on your set-up. We used a Chemex because it has a larger capacity and you can fill it to the top and come back 20 min. later. Chemex also uses a thicker filter, so you’ll get rid of nearly all of the suspended solids. You may have to use 2 or more filters because they can become clogged with this much coffee flowing through them
7. Now pour the resulting coffee into a storage container. We used this (Ronnybrook glass milk jar):
8. The coffee will keep over a week in the fridge with little change in its flavor
Congratulations – you now have over 1 liter of coffee extract. I call it coffee extract because a) that’s what it is and b) it is too strong for most people to drink straight. So, what to do with it then? Well, for hot drinks, try 2 parts hot water with 1 part coffee extract (basically like making an Americano). If you have an espresso machine, use the steam arm. For cold drinks, try using cold water and/or cold milk with the extract. I’ve been filling a glass with ice, pouring coffee extract about 1/3 up the glass and then topping it off with milk. Notice I haven’t mentioned anything about sugar – the coffee is so darn good, you don’t need it!
If you like to get fancy, try making a coffee cocktail by subbing the cold brewed coffee in place of espresso for a martini (not a true martini, but usually vanilla vodka, simple syrup, chocolate powder, etc). If you like to get extra fancy (of if you like your coffee really strong), make some ice cubes out of the coffee extract.
So, why should you bother with cold brewing? It’s environmentally friendly, you’ll save money (at least $2 for each iced coffee you know you’ll consume in the warmer months), the coffee extract travels well (we even threw some in a water bottle to take camping), the acidity content is lower (key if you have a sensitive stomach), perhaps not everyone in your household wakes up or wants coffee at the same time and the most important reason of all: it just tastes good.
If this is a little too DIY, the Toddy Cold Brew System can help you out.
Look how happy these two are together:
Filed under Coffee
A Thirsty Spirit 