Serving People Serving Coffee Since 2005
Issue link: http://baristamagazine.epubxp.com/i/931664
FIFth PLACE Hugh Kelly, ONA Coffee Barista Champion of Australia What was the inspiration for your signature drink? The idea of this drink was to further explore the different approaches I took to this coffee throughout my milk-based and espresso courses and how I can manipulate its fl avor. This process has incredible versatility and I wanted to show this off. What coffee did you use? I used a whole-cherry carbonic-macerated Gesha from Finca Deborah in Panama. As opposed to [Hugh's boss and the owner of ONA Coffee] Sasa Sestic's washed carbonic maceration [which Sasa used to win the 2015 WBC], which had the skin removed before maceration, mine is left as the whole cherry and macerated longer to bring different colors and fl avors to this coffee. It's then depulped, washed and dried as a Washed, coffee for the more vibrant, sparkling side I love in Deborah Washed coffees. What was the exact recipe? Four espressos of whole-cherry carbonic-macerated Deborah extracted at 16.5g in, 49g out, on 20 seconds, and left to come to room temperature to bring out the heavier fruit in this coffee. To this I added slow-reduced black currants which I sourced from Tasma- nia, the little island on the bottom west coast of Australia, earlier in the year. This place has a cool climate, very fertile soil, and amazing conditions to produce intense sweet berries and other fruit. I reduced this really slowly on indirect heat with water (50:50). The water was 70:30 calcium to magnesium to bring out the quality I wanted. I added 7ml of this intense concentrated black currant to the drink to manipulate the darker-fruit structure of my coffee brought out by carbonic maceration on skins. To this I wanted to highlight the vibrant clean side of my coffee to balance. I ground the same coffee and sifted out the larger grounds above 700 microns to increase surface area in the coffee, allowing me to extract shots that maximize vibrancy and fl avor without giving sharp acidity, which would come with a less consistent grind profi le. I put 12g in the basket which was where I found the fl orals in my coffee were best highlighted, and extracted 50g to bring this quality out and increase vibrancy to lift up the heavier side of my coffee. Finally, I needed balancing sweetness, and I wanted something that could lift up new fl avors in my coffee. I played with honey and found it tasted good but overtook other fl avors, so I found freeze-drying it, mixing it with raw sugar, and slightly caramelizing the sugar in a fairy-fl oss machine allowed me to use its sweetness but control how it worked with my coffee. I added 1.5g of this fl oss to the 12g in 150g out extraction, then added 11g of this to the four espressos and black currant. Anything else to add about the drink? The drink was intensely fl oral coming from the long extraction, but with yellow peach fl avors, strawberry, cherry, and more. 68 barista magazine