Barista Magazine

DEC 2015 -JAN 2016

Serving People Serving Coffee Since 2005

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creating approachable experiences to share our passion and values. I like to think about the feeling I get when I'm drinking coffee. When helping someone choose a coffee, I often ask if they are looking for something comforting and familiar—chocolaty, caramel—or something more adventurous—floral, fruit-forward, effervescent." Elizabeth's bread background has informed a lot of the way she thinks about the process of flavor development, too, and how to express to consumers the way that those flavors are expressed by the makers behind what they're about to eat or drink. "There is a commonality in these analogies: It takes simple, high- quality ingredients and a lot of time to craft quality coffee and bread. Freshness is key, and simplicity is important. The best-quality bread is made by hand, slowly fermented and enjoyed within, at most, several days after baking." The other key distinction, and one that drives a wedge between the coffee-wine comparison, is the impact of age on coffee. "The best breads—and coffee, chocolate, vegetables, poultry, and meat—should be consumed hyperfresh," Elizabeth says. "Fresh bread is incredibly flavorful, textural, and contains nutrients and fiber. The supermarket stuff is spongy, bland, highly processed, and devoid of nutritional value. It also resists mold for a frighteningly long time. Artisan bread is living!" (Just like, most of us would agree, fresh-roasted coffee.) A League of our own Rather than use comparisons to drive the sensory descriptions we use with coffee consumers, why not develop an entirely specific language for coffee? Based on the fact that we're still fundamentally dealing with a commodified product, acknowledging that a massive percentage of coffee drinkers are not specialty-coffee drinkers, and also trying to create an open and inclusive language that not only speaks to the Folgers fans of the world, but also relates to the third-wavers as well—how do we do that? Capturing and expressing the essence of coffee in words is exceptionally difficult, but it can't be impossible. (After all, we do manage to write a whole magazine's worth about it every two months; surely we can think of some things to print on the side of a bag.) We could start thinking less about comparison and more about differentiation: How we can use language to describe the things that make specialty coffee special, without relying on derivatives, semi- similarities, and past experience? Flavor notes scratch at the surface of this, but Christopher's right—without explaining why certain tastes occur in coffee, we may as well say nothing at all. The descriptors can seem meaningless, highfalutin, arbitrary, and, worst yet, might not remotely match the experience the consumer is going to have. Perhaps indicating what each step of the process contributes to a coffee's character: Indicating that this Kenyan coffee of the SL-28 variety will taste inherently sweet, tart, and tropical; savory in part due to its post-harvest processing; will have a medium body and some brown-sugar sweetness courtesy of the roast; and produce either a nice clean cup as a pourover or a very punchy and dynamically acidic shot of espresso. Speaking to each element that creates the flavor of coffee—the plant, the process, the roast, and the brew—might take more work and seem more limiting, but it also can bring our "elevated" language down to a consumer's level. Not just any consumer, but every consumer—perhaps most importantly the ones we haven't won over yet. It's not perfect, but it might be a start. (Countinued from page 71) European espresso DWLWVÀQHVW [ Blended and Roasted in America ] Malabar Gold ® (650) 366-5453 info @josuma.com www.josuma.com Blended to be perfect by itself. Remains equally perfect with milk. 73 www.baristamagazine.com

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