“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” — Winston Churchill
mycuppa February 2017 Newsletter
El Salvador
In many respects, El Salvador, like Bolivia, is often overlooked on the world coffee origin stage.
A small country with a relatively high population, El Salvador is within the Cent-Am group of coffee-growing nations and its neighbours, Guatemala and Honduras.
El Salvador has faced many daunting challenges, including wars, natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes, and the persistent obstacles posed by chronic corruption, internal conflict, gang-related violence, and, at times, perplexing economic policies reliant on excessive financial subsidies.
El Salvador's economy is barely above collapse, with up to a quarter of the population living in extreme poverty.
Coffee has historically been a significant contributor to the El Salvadorian economy for over a century - at times up to 40% of total export revenue.
However, those lofty heights from the 70's and 80's are substantially lower these days.
Over the last 30 years, coffee production in El Salvador has declined for various reasons - a general lack of investment and, perhaps more profoundly, greater competition from the Cent-Am origins able to produce higher volumes at great qualities and lower cost points.
The coffee leaf rust (Roya) epidemic has recently significantly lowered harvest volumes.
The future of coffee in El Salvador is currently at a critical crossroads.
Despite the many ongoing challenges, El Salvador remains a respected origin among specialty roasters worldwide and continues to attract a loyal following of supporters within coffee companies. Most of us live hoping to find a gem from El Salvador - because they do exist.
Back in the dawn of specialty coffee - 2007 to 2010, El Salvador became a popular origin for baristas aspiring to compete in the World Barista Championships.
Our Australian representative in 2008 came incredibly close to winning the WBC claiming runner-up with a beautiful El Salvadorian coffee that was regarded at the time and being one of the best ever entered - complexity, texture, sweetness and balance.
Much of the quality coffee in El Salvador is highly grown in shade.
This coffee varietal thrives in El Salvador's rich, volcanic soil and favourable climate, resulting in stunning flavour. Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica often overshadow El Salvador coffee.
The coffees can be milder with a soft, citric acidity - comparable to Mexico and Brazil, often relegated as a good quality blender.
In our 2010 - 2013 era, we loved a beautiful coffee called San Emilio.
We often featured this bean as a great single origin and a showcase highlight in our premium blends. Other excellent lots from La Providencia were comparable to the best Guat's and Costas.
In the last three years, we have been running a deliberate short strategy on El Salvador due to the limited availability of lots.
At the end of Spring 2016, we obtained some delightful coffee from the El Borbollon estate in the Santa Ana Volcano region.
Initially, we found the coffee mediocre and lost interest in it.
However, a few weeks later, we were presented with another lot from the same farm, which had a perfect combination of mandarin citric acidity and rich chocolate flavour that pleasantly surprised us.
Maybe it's just me, but mandarin and chocolate are a match made in heaven.
There was just a hint of fruit, and with a super-clean milk-tea body thick cocoa coating, this fine coffee was a more pleasant cup than its predecessor, so we ranged this lot in our store.
The challenge we constantly face is to find something that appeals to our customers.
Sometimes, it is a point of difference to the rest of the market, and at other times, it's just about having a stylish, rich, rewarding cup, and this El Salvador fits nicely into the latter.
This month we are pleased to feature a superb, classic example of El Salvador thoroughly washed bourbon grown between 1,300 and 1,500 masl.
Perfect for milk-based espresso (latte, cappuccino, flat white).
- Acidity - mandarin, citric
- Aroma - cocoa
- Flavour - chocolate, milk tea smooth body
- Finish - well-balanced and clean
- Score - officially 83 points (although we think it's closer to 85)
Grab it here - El Salvador
Free Shipping on Bulk Barista Beans - Restrictions Applied
From this month, we have changed the 2kg and 6kg Barista Blend bundles to restrict the areas that qualify for FREE SHIPPING.
It's no secret that shipping is never free - it's just a marketing gimmick to overcome the barriers to purchasing from those customers who believe shipping is a waste of money.
You can't offer a highly discounted, top quality, constantly fresh roasted product and then also include shipping.
For the last nine years, we have been offering an Australia-wide deal on these bulk bundles, and it's been a constant source of cost blowout for our business when remote customers buy this product.
We have removed WA, NT, North QLD and remote SA from the FREE SHIPPING matrix.
Customers from these locations can still purchase the Barista 500g and 1kg products in the same manner as all our other products.
Blends Re-engineered
Whilst it may not be apparent, we are constantly optimizing our blends to improve the cup profiles. It is a natural process throughout the year as new batches of seasonal products arrive at the warehouse.
Barista
Using a superb, fresh new Brazil specialty natural and the exceptional Guatemala Huehuetenango, these two changes have resulted in a significant cup improvement.
Blind testing demonstrated that our QA team picked Barista more often as the #1 preferred sample in tests across our blend portfolio. Barista
Espresso
The recent arrival of an Ethiopian natural to our warehouse has enabled us to re-introduce Ethiopian origins into our eponymous Espresso blend.
This coffee is a high seller in our store and cafe customers.
The fruit note is now more apparent; it's sweeter, prosperous, and rounded. Espresso
Centre Way
It was completely rebuilt from the ground up.
Punchy, sweet and syrupy, this high-flavored classic keeps improving.
All blend components are from our Grand Cruz range. Centre Way
8 Ounces
Another blend that has been rebuilt entirely from scratch.
We have gone with a fruity selection exhibiting mind-blowing aromatics.
This coffee continues to fly under the radar, and in terms of value for money, it's a great deal and a rewarding cup. 8 Ounces
Should I bother with measuring Total Dissolved Solids (TDS)?
In previous articles, we examined espresso channeling, cleaning your machine, retaining grinds and storing freshly roasted coffee.
Coffee has evolved from a daily necessity into an all-consuming hobby or obsession for some enthusiasts.
However, preparing a beverage has become far more complex, with tools and techniques that can help you diagnose and improve consistency.
This month, we look at Total Dissolved Solids, or TDS.
It is one of the most technical aspects of coffee measurement (aside from colour tracking) and not something I'd suggest is suitable for the average coffee drinker.
This article is intended for coffee connoisseurs interested in learning about the advantages of TDS.
The quick answer is a definite NO.
So, if you want to save time, skip this article now.
A few years ago, the concept of total dissolved solids (TDS) and its related brew extraction yields became the "critical prerequisite" companion for quality coffee.
Suddenly, specialty cafes demanded specific brew recipes for their coffee bean supply.
When I politely asked the baristas how they wanted their coffee to taste, they responded with typical disdain.
For the wise owls amongst us, it seemed as if we had been doing it wrong since the dawn of espresso.
TDS measurements became a must-have toolkit; without it, you felt naked.
Anyone with a stake in quality coffee rushed out to spend $1,200+ for digital refractometers and scales (yes, I'm guilty of being a sheep and following the TDS crowd).
Not only was it necessary to have a refractometer to generate TDS scores, but we also had to precisely weigh our dose and shot volumes, which was not entirely a bad idea as this technique pre-dated the recent TDS hysteria.
The irony of this new era in high-end, precision-measurement espresso (a.k.a. TDS hysteria) is that rarely was the coffee taste-tested because, you see, TDS scores were the only thing that was important or relevant.
In other words, there was an implied truth that if you hit a magic TDS score, the resultant cup was delicious.
I played this game much longer than I'm willing to admit publicly.
Part of it is my stubbornness and persistence, but we must always remain open-minded as coffee roasters.
A roaster's job is never done, as there's always room for roasting the perfect coffee.
However, the sceptic in me was lurking underneath.
Australia's top Barista at the time (who also happens to court and relish messiah-like fame and does produce some worthy concepts from time to time) published target TDS "numbers" as the holy grail - and whether you liked it or not, those damn TDS targets were the new meaning of espresso and the ultimate stone-tablet-from-the-mountain gospel for the espresso faithful.
During this TDS hysteria period, I often thought about TDS deeply whether I unthinkingly missed something in the 1,000,000-odd espresso shots pulled over the last 35 years?
Had my treacherous tongue been lying to me all this time?
There was also another reason I kept constantly questioning the merit of TDS.
The messiah was not so much wrong but not entirely correct, either.
After hitting the TDS targets, everyone was disappointed.
The coffee cup didn't bring any excitement or "wow" moment, leaving one underwhelmed.
In some cases, the optimal TDS varied from the target despite almost 1,000 adjustments made over eight months on either side of the magic numbers.
After all the adjustments, further clarification was still necessary.
Sometimes, the measurements did not align with the taste, leading to doubt and skepticism.
Of course, there was another reason to be curious about TDS.
It was critical to understand if changing or optimizing roast profiles would enable favourable or desirable TDS results.
In other words, was the TDS more heavily influenced by espresso extraction parameters or the roast profile - was it the bean or the Barista?
I had taken the chainsaw to my previously reliable and proven roasting profiles and experimented with numerous grinders, espresso machines and dosing techniques because the TDS hysteria had gotten hold of our specialty cafe customers.
Staying at the front meant we must keep running ahead as fast as we possibly could, albeit unthinkingly into the TDS void, voraciously consuming the entire industry.
Finally, after ten months of ball-breaking effort, I consumed an entire bottle of scotch one night and resolved to "stuff it" - this TDS-driven insanity must stop immediately.
The final nail in the TDS coffin for us was driven home when an ex-world barista champion from Europe talked in Melbourne to industry folks about a new revolutionary cafe grinder and how it worked a treat in his busy European cafe when combined with regular 2-hourly TDS measurements.
He projected a graph on the screen to show the detailed level of TDS measurements.
I guess it was his attempt in trying to impress the crowd with the "surely more measurement = greater quality" theme and gain legitimacy, given the industry was feeding like hungry sharks on anything related to TDS.
Sitting in the audience, I asked a simple question to this world barista champion" so please tell me how do you reconcile the TDS changes with ambient temp variation because your results tables do not contain any ambient temps as reference data?".
To his credit, this Barista champ acknowledged that ambient temps can greatly influence TDS scores, and he answered honestly" no, we did not take that into account".
The takeaway from that session was an affirmation that TDS will likely distract you from the reality of simple taste testing.
Little more than a case of science overtaking the senses.
Although we significantly invested in understanding TDS, some notable advantages emerged from our extensive research on this subject.
These benefits include measuring yield by weighing input and output volumes and creating more effective taste profiles based on a combination of measurement and taste.
Considering books remain a relatively simple and helpful method to understand espresso extraction in a hospitality environment (such as a cafe), it can dramatically help achieve consistency from hour to hour and day to day.
The story's moral is simple - when it comes to coffee, there is no substitute for taste.
TDS measurement is perhaps beyond the scope of the average coffee drinker, and whilst the cost of refractometers has come down with more choice, it's not something I would recommend getting involved with because, quite frankly, it's a lot of effort for little to no benefit.
