Speaking of coffee, many people's first impression must be the "Nescafe" produced by Nestle, which became popular in the 1980s and 1990s. At that time, almost every family would have Nestle sets with a can of coffee and a can of coffee mate. When sending gifts at festivals, it was also taken as a relatively high-end gift.

Nestle should be one of the first coffee brands which entered China. Because of its appearance, Chinese people started engagement with coffee. Of course, people in that time were not very interested in these western things. Even when they bought them, they would put them for a long time until they expired and threw them away.

In Europe and America, drinking coffee is as popular as drinking tea in China. But the emergence of instant coffee is not from people's daily life, but from the World War II. In the history of coffee, the target group of instant coffee was actually the American soldiers during the war. In order to improve the spirit and endurance of soldiers during wartime, over baked and extracted instant coffee was provided to the army. This excessive production mode led to the bitter taste of coffee, which can only be drunk by adding sugar bags and creams. So no one drank black coffee at that time, unless he was crazy.

The accepetion of coffee by chinese, was started from the entrance of Starbucks. Chinese eoconomy has developed extraodinarily in the beginning of 21st century, the 1980s were the backbone forces of such development. The target group of Starbucks were then aimed at these 1980s. While calling the reminisce about that age, the first word about Coffee I've learned was: Cuppuccino, filled with the feelings of high-end. This stage, was exactly the second wave of coffee expansion worldwide.

The coffee culture that Starbucks delivered to the world could be counted as classic. From deep bake+vapor drinking, to Latte and Cuppucino mixed by Espresso from Italy and cream. With 50 years experience in deep baking and fine Arabica coffee beans, Starbucks coffee has brought a taste of coffee which is strong but not bitter, with a delicious and sweet taste in front of the world. It is acknowledged that Starbucks has dug out its own path of fine coffee and also ignited a new product form of coffee as a modern beverage through the form of Latte.

咖啡的味道

Taste of coffee

If someone tells you coffee is salty, do you believe it? Actually, coffee is not only bitter, it consists of sauer, sweet, flower taste, nut taste, cream, wood smell and many other fabulous tastes.

Nowadays, the worldwide acknowledged institute for coffee - Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) has set clear quality and standard classification.The "Coffee Tasters' Flavor Wheel" by senior consultant Ted Lingle has been used till now ever since 1997. peoples started to focus about the flavor of coffee. And through different level of baking of coffee beans, brewing methods, to show the thousands of flavors of coffee. (Coffee Tastors' Flavor Wheel is also a required course for SCAA cup testers. It summarizes the existing smell and taste of coffee from two aspects: normal taste spectrum and abnormal taste spectrum. It is the field of advanced research for cup testers.)

In the <Coffee Flavor Chemistry> by Ivon Flament, it was pointed out that"Till now, scientists have isolated more than 300 kinds of compounds from coffee beans, and more than 850 kinds from baked beans. There are at least 1200 volatile, water-soluble, organic and inorganic compounds in coffee. More than 300 kinds of chocolate and 500 kinds of wine. Moreover the coffee flavor spectrum varies with the degree of baking, which can be called the flavor chameleon in the catering industry. "

Regarding coffee flavor, different people will have different opinions. Everyone has his own taste. Barista is same as Chef Michelin, even the best dish you cooked might not satisfy everyone. The opinion leader in Taiwan, HAN Huaizong has written in his book <Classic Coffee>:

"To make a cup of unique coffee and add fragrance to the world is the coffee maker's ambition. However, human facial features are very subjective. It is almost impossible to make a cup of perfect coffee that everyone likes. Most people think that good coffee is mellow and delicious. But there are still some people who think it's strong, light, sour or not warm enough It's not easy to satisfy all people with only one cup of coffee! But don't be discouraged because of this. As long as you have the measurements, freshness, thickness, 3T and the proportion of brewing, these five key points can easily make a good coffee that tickles the taste buds. "

Fortunately, as an ordinary coffee lover, we don't need to cater to the public, just make out the flavor we like. Han Huaizong's five key points may be a good way.

How to make a cup of wonderful coffee?

When coffee becomes part of your life, pursuing the perfect taste is then the next thing on the to do list. Two worldwide coffee waves were mentioned above, first was the instant coffee era, second was the classic coffee era, in which Starbucks was the best representative. And now the third wave has already approached us, that is the revolution of coffee esthetics. It's not only about the baking of coffee beans and the fine coffee beans, but also tablewares and environment to enjoy the coffee.

In the third coffee wave, we cannot avoid several key words: water and sunshine, Arabica and Robusta, single beans and compounded beans, and the method of brewing coffee,hand brewing, French pressing and etc.

However, in this article, we only talk about "How to make a cup of delicious coffee anytime and anywhere", so we don't write too much about the origin and processing methods of coffee beans. Based on Han Huaizong's five key points, make coffee by hand, which is most like a cup tester, and be responsible for your daily drinks.

First of all, let's talk about the principle and steps of hand brewing, which is, first mill the coffee beans into powder, then put them in the filter cup with filter paper, then pour hot water to soak the coffee powder, and finally the extracted coffee will penetrate into the cup below through the filter paper, which is the whole process. So, before hand brewing, we need to prepare the following tools to help us for a cup of delicious coffee.

Electronic scale: In order to measure the weight of coffee beans of each portion, to match the proportion of water in the measuring cup, in order to form a stable taste and find the regular pattern.

Themometer: It is mainly used to measure the temperature of cooked water, whether it is extracted at 80 ℃ - 90 ℃ or 90 ℃ - 95 ℃.

Measuring cup: it is mainly used to measure the proportion of water used each time, so as to summarize the regular pattern and find the best taste.

Timer: it's used to count the time in the extraction process. The time will affect the extraction rate and concentration of coffee. A professional cup tester will combine the speed of water outflow and the technique to strictly abide by the time factor.

Secondly, about the freshness and finish degree of coffee. The freshness of coffee beans is the prerequisite for delicious taste. It is known that the chemical reaction of mature coffee beans includes not only volatilization and oxidation, but also hydrolysis by moisture and MENA reaction at room temperature. Moreover, when you grind coffee beans into powder, the amount of vanillin and balsam will be reduced by 50% in 15 minutes. So when you buy coffee beans, you have to look at the production date and start brewing immediately after grinding.

And degree of fineness means how fine the coffee beans are grinded. In normal cases, the coarser the coffee beans are grinded, the shorter the extraction time it will take, because the water will quickly pass through the filter paper and fall into the cup, so the coffee taste will be lighter. The finer the coffee are grinded, the opposite may be true, and over extraction may occur to make the coffee with strong taste.

Therefore, fineness is a good way to control bitterness. An experienced coffee maker will adjust the fineness of the ground flour and the time for the water to produce more delicious coffee according to the baking degree of the beans. According to the research of the European fine coffee association, the grinding degree of hand brewed coffee is that each bean is ground into 1000-3000 particles with a diameter of about 0.35mm, which can also be slightly adjusted according to the baking depth.

Finally, we will talk about 3T, which is, Temperature, Time and Turbulance. All the operations mentioned above, the most fundamental impact is the extraction rate of coffee, and then the flavor of coffee. The temperature is also related to the degree of baking. The same with the fineness of grinding, the higher the temperature, the easier it is to extract coffee. Therefore, deep baked beans are not suitable for too high temperature, or bitter taste will appear. The temperature range of hand brewing is about 82 ℃ - 94 ℃, and above 90 ℃ can be regarded as high temperature extraction.

The assumption of boiling time is that under the same amount of water, the longer the time, the higher the extraction rate, so deep baked beans are not for long-time brewing. So how to control the length of time? This should be adjusted by the speed of water flow and the fineness of grinding.

There is a lot of attention to the control of water flow, such as the size of the spout, the height of the water column, the position of each time falling in the coffee powder mixing, and so on. If you want to make coffee by hand, the last pour is the most important step. Because there are other data to depend on, and pouring water can only depends on if you have talented skills.

Hand made coffee has a very flexible way of brewing, everyone's taste is not the same. The best combination of different links is the key to make a cup of delicious coffee. The whole process is simple, but it contains the coffee maker's long-term test and experience accumulated.

The distance between coffee and our life is notr far anymore. Many of my friends have coffee machines at home, and they often see the elders who play with hand brewing immerse themselves in their lunch break. Even if you go shopping occasionally, you will find a lot of small coffee shops and workshops, where all kinds of coffee players are picking beans. In fact, the pursuit of life is a demand for fine things. To maintain this attitude will for sure bring us perfect life.

What's the best thing to do while drinking coffee?

Immersed in thinking

Keen on reading

Or active in communication

Single Origin+Handrip Coffee=

A space, full of freshness and baking Aroma

Here, you can do them all!

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