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Roast! West Coast Classics: Water & Flavor · Coffee People Podcast

0:15
Good morning everyone. I hope you have a hot cup of
0:17
coffee at the ready because it is cold out and because this is
0:21
the roast West Coast coffee podcast first off.
0:25
Hi, hello. I'm Ryan Wilt.
0:27
And I've been hosting this show for three seasons.
0:29
The This is currently on Hiatus for the holiday while we gear up
0:33
for season 4, which is coming in early 2022, but I didn't want to
0:37
leave you without some great coffee content.
0:40
I'll be checking in with you. Each week with some updates,
0:42
some coffee news, and short interviews from the road because
0:45
I've noticed a lot of new listeners coming aboard in our
0:48
most recent season, I'm going to be re-airing some of the classic
0:52
coffee smarter coffee education, shorts from the first few
0:56
seasons to be honest. I'm also going back to listen
1:00
because As we've covered a lot of information and frankly, I
1:03
don't remember it all. It's been a long year and a half
1:06
back at the beginning of this show.
1:08
Season one, we had just heard about this thing called the
1:11
coronavirus. At the time, I was recording.
1:13
These shows on Google meet video chats on my phone.
1:16
I've come a long way since then. I am still recording in the
1:20
closet though, but it's been upgraded a little bit.
1:23
If you want to go back and listen to all of those rows to
1:26
West Coast coffee smarter, and interview episodes from the
1:29
beginning. You can do that on Spotify Apple
1:32
anchor or head to roast westcoast.com to stream the
1:36
shows in their original form right from the newsletter.
1:39
You can also subscribe there for free or choose to pay for a
1:42
monthly or annual subscription. It's more like a tip that I can
1:46
use to keep creating this content and I can't thank those
1:50
who've done that already enough and thank you for considering
1:53
it. I appreciate all of the
1:55
listeners readers and subscribers.
1:57
We're helping to uplift the coffee Community for First
2:00
Classics reissue. I'm going to share season 1
2:03
weeks, two, and three coffee smarter, episodes, Chris O'Brien
2:07
of coffee cycle. And I talked about the
2:08
importance of water, the ratio of water to coffee grounds, the
2:12
temperature and steeping time in our morning, coffee brewing.
2:16
Then don't go anywhere because we're going to roll right into
2:18
the week, three season one episode, where we talk about
2:21
flavors and coffee. Chris is going to walk us
2:23
through some of the basics. Like the coffee flavor, wheel,
2:26
flavor profiles. And then we chat about drinking
2:29
coffee with mindful. Shh.
2:31
As always, Chris has all of the answers if you've been listening
2:35
and you're wanting to recommend a great Coffee Roastery or
2:38
coffee, professional from the West Coast that you think should
2:41
be on this show in season 4, please hit me up on Instagram at
2:45
roast West Coast. The next season is going to be
2:48
the biggest one yet and I'd certainly appreciate the
2:50
heads-up of whose stories. You want to learn more about for
2:54
now double-check that coffee mug and make sure it is full because
2:58
it is time for the roast West Coast coffee.
3:00
Outkast Classics Edition. Chris, welcome back to Rose West
3:18
Coast and I'm excited and shocked that you came back.
3:21
I am to honestly I'm a little shocked but I just I just
3:26
couldn't help myself. I had to, I had to help educate
3:29
you about coffee. It was like a moral imperative.
3:32
I feel like you saw what a lost cause I was on the first one and
3:35
you thought this will be the thing that gets me some like
3:38
Good Karma points for the week. Ryan, I've known you were a lost
3:41
cause A long time. Moving on this week, I want to
3:46
ask you three, things about water, because water is water is
3:51
essential to everything. But especially to coffee when
3:53
we're brewing coffee, in the morning, does the ratio of water
3:57
to Coffee Beans matter, does the length that the beans sit in
4:01
that water matter and is there a rule about how hot that water
4:05
should be? Well, this is a great set of
4:07
questions because as you pointed out, water is most of what We're
4:12
drinking. When we drink coffee that being
4:14
said, drink water with your coffee, too, because you do need
4:17
to stay hydrated and coffee and alone will not do it.
4:21
But yes, water is the most important thing other than
4:23
coffee that you're putting into the drink.
4:26
So, to answer your questions, the ratio of water to coffee
4:30
beans, doesn't matter? Absolutely.
4:33
There are organizations out there that do nothing, but
4:37
coffee, and the main one that we talked about in the coffee
4:40
business is the specialty. Coffee Association.
4:43
Specialty, coffee Association, has a specific ratio of coffee
4:48
to water that they say is ideal. That ratio is 16 to 116, grams
4:54
of water for every one gram of coffee beans.
4:58
Most people at home. Probably aren't weighing their
5:00
water, or weighing their coffee, maybe they are.
5:02
That's great. People, do it with tablespoons,
5:05
tea, spoons, cups, courts, whatever it is, the lines on
5:10
your coffee maker. But yes, It's basically, you
5:13
don't have to be the sca 12:44 perfect.
5:17
I even prefer my coffee often at a 15 21 2016, 21, but basically
5:23
find a ratio that you like and stick with it as with anything
5:27
only change, one variable at a time.
5:29
So if you're changing your ratio, don't mess with your
5:33
length of Brewing time or temperature of water, which were
5:37
the other two questions you ask me so ratio, does it matter?
5:40
Yes. They're a perfect ideal ratio,
5:44
SCA says, yes and it's 12:44. But really what matters most is?
5:49
Do you like it? If you do stick to that ratio
5:52
and I'll say, I'll just jump in and say that when you talk about
5:55
most people maybe not measuring at home, I never measured at
5:58
home until I learned that I bought like a ten dollar kitchen
6:01
scale off at Amazon which kind of felt guilty about because I'd
6:04
rather go to the local hardware store, but we're in a pandemic.
6:07
So I ordered it and I measured basically once and just made
6:11
some little marks. Mark's Michael my different on
6:13
my French press and on my thing. And so now I just dump it into
6:17
that so I know what I'm doing. I love it.
6:18
Sounds great. Yeah, I would I would eyeball it
6:21
back before I own the scale, I'd look at the level of your French
6:24
Press was what I used to use, and I'd say okay, if I fill it
6:27
up the depth of my thumb knuckle, you know, and then fill
6:30
it up to the top, you know? And that was, that was how I did
6:33
it back then. But but yeah, you just find some
6:35
way to be consistent about it, and that's your ratio.
6:38
Okay. So we still have the length of
6:39
brewing and the temperature to talk about Actually, it's so the
6:42
length of Brewing, doesn't matter?
6:44
Yes, it does Ryan. You like to belittle your own
6:47
coffee knowledge, but obviously, if you set me up some good
6:50
questions here, so the length of Brewing matters, it will change
6:54
a bit depending on your Brewing method and how much you're
6:58
Brewing. So, if you're Brewing, two
7:00
gallons for your local church Gathering, or if you're at a
7:05
shop and you're brewing and gallon and a half, or if you're
7:07
Brewing, just a cup for yourself, those might change a
7:10
little bit but generally Li you want to simplify it, you always
7:14
want to be Brewing, somewhere between three and six minutes.
7:17
That's pretty good up to like a gallon or so.
7:19
So 3 to 6 minutes. So a French press, you're doing
7:22
like four to six minutes if you have one of those little pour
7:26
over things like, you know, the Melita comb that your grandma
7:29
had, or the Hari o V60 or Chemex that your hipster friend has
7:33
down the hallway. That's going to be three to four
7:35
minutes, maybe five. But yeah, three to six minutes
7:38
is a great Brewing time. It does relate to how fine.
7:42
Grind the coffee, how small the pieces of particles of coffee
7:45
are but it's nice to simplify and just say hey three to six
7:49
minutes find the time that you like best for the thing that you
7:52
do consistently every day. Find that time stick with it and
7:56
again, only mess with one variable at a time.
7:58
And can I assume that leaving it in for longer on the 6-minute
8:02
side? It's going to?
8:03
What how does that affect the flavored versus shorter?
8:06
No, that's great. When you brew it for, Too Short,
8:08
it can often tastes sour or metallic.
8:12
When you brew it for too long, it tastes usually people
8:15
describe it as tasting too. Bitter.
8:17
It's a funny thing to say, because all coffee tastes
8:20
bitter, but there's good bitter, right?
8:22
Like dark. Chocolate is bitter, but we like
8:24
dark chocolate. I mean, maybe you're more of a
8:26
milk chocolate guy. I'm not here to judge.
8:28
Bitter is not not necessarily a bad flavor but there are there
8:33
are flavors that come out that people tend to describe as
8:36
bitter when you brew it for too long, you wrote it seven minutes
8:39
or eight minutes. A lot of those flavors.
8:42
Are better described as a stringent, which can be like,
8:45
drying in your mouth, like 10:00.
8:48
I really 10 of wine or just kind of mouth puckery.
8:50
Not, not sour. But, you know, there's, there's
8:52
a bunch of ways that coffee contains bad.
8:55
You've ever gotten that diner coffee, you probably have
8:58
experimented with some of them. But yeah, if you want to make
9:01
the best cup of coffee possible, you just stick to that 3 to 6
9:04
minutes. You go too far.
9:05
It tastes rubbery, bitter astringent asphalt, e, however
9:10
you want to describe it. You do too short.
9:13
A Time Less Than 3 minutes. It might taste sour and my taste
9:16
salty. It might taste metallic got it.
9:19
Okay, so last thing was temperature temperature, all
9:22
right, temperature is one of my favorites because you know
9:25
coffee science has kind of changed a little bit in the last
9:28
decade or two. We started using tools in the
9:31
coffee industry that other Industries have had access to
9:35
that. We didn't have access to but
9:37
again just to simplify it down and not get too into it as you
9:40
know that I am prone to. You temperature, there's a
9:43
minimum temperature that we like, for brewing coffee, it's
9:46
195 degrees. Some people will tell you that
9:49
you don't want to go over 20 for or over 2008.
9:53
I say screw that anywhere from 195 to 212 is going to be just
9:58
fine, all right? The only complication that you
10:00
get from temperature is people talk about cold brew.
10:04
Well, I want to brew cold brew in my refrigerator or on my
10:07
countertop and that's great. If you want to do it in your
10:10
refrigerator on, Your countertop, you're going to need
10:13
a lot more time. So I said, three to six minutes,
10:17
if you're doing it with cold water, that ain't gonna cut it,
10:20
you're gonna want 12 to 24 hours.
10:23
So yeah, you want to stick to that 195 11:58 you're brewing
10:27
anything hot. And if you're trying to do some
10:29
sort of cold brew method, then you're going to watch 12 to 24
10:32
hours because the water temperature isn't hot enough to
10:35
to get everything in the that short amount of time you need a
10:38
lot more time. Well I think that's going to
10:40
take us right up to the Limit. Today, Chris, thank you again
10:43
for joining me. Thank you for coming back and I
10:45
look forward to chatting. You chatting with you again next
10:47
week. It's always a treat Ryan.
10:49
I'm always so happy to share This coffee's copy knowledge
10:52
with you and talk about coffee. And that come even drinking
10:55
coffee right now, talk to you soon.
10:56
But All right Chris, welcome back to the roast West Coast
11:02
coffee smarter. What did I call this show?
11:04
I can't even remember. Copy Smarter on roast West
11:07
Coast. Welcome to week three this week.
11:10
I want to ask you about coffee flavors, in particular about the
11:14
coffee flavor wheel, and what it is and kind of what, what are
11:17
some of the beginning flavors, that new coffee drinkers, might
11:20
be able to pull out of their coffee that maybe they wouldn't
11:22
expect. I don't know.
11:23
Something like blueberry perhaps.
11:26
Well, this is a is one of my favorite topics.
11:29
Some coffee because people don't expect to taste things like
11:33
blueberry and coffee if they haven't had it before.
11:36
So great question. Have you ever had a coffee that
11:39
tastes like blueberry Ryan? I feel like I taste blueberry
11:42
and every coffee at this point. It's just like budget
11:47
overwhelming pervasive flavor that you just can't miss it,
11:50
really? Alright.
11:51
So those this is a thing that, you know, you and I get that not
11:54
everybody get, but for the listeners out there.
11:55
What he's doing right now is called sarcasm.
11:58
So probably I heard of it before.
12:00
But anyway, this, this podcast isn't about sarcasm.
12:03
It's about coffee flavors. And so, you're probably
12:05
wondering why we're talking about blueberry when we're
12:07
talking about coffee. So coffee is is pretty cool.
12:10
It's not just as yummy drink that wakes you up in the
12:12
morning. It's actually scientifically the
12:16
most complex tasting beverage in the world and it comes not just
12:22
from these brown beans that you get.
12:24
It actually comes from a fruit. Those brown beans that you get
12:27
are actually Seeds that sit inside a cherry or a berry is
12:33
sometimes called that grows on a bush.
12:36
So coffee is actually a fruit. When you drink coffee in the
12:39
morning you're drinking the product of a berry.
12:43
So it's not that unusual. When you look at it that way to
12:46
have tasted something like blueberry in a cup of coffee.
12:49
So when I say that coffee is the most complex tasting, beverage
12:53
in the world, I believe the numbers are something like there
12:56
are over 800 different compounds.
12:59
Ed's chemical compounds in a single cup of black coffee that
13:03
the human palate can detect. So for comparison, a nice glass
13:07
of wine, which you've referred people mentioned, tasting notes
13:10
on wine. Oh, this tastes like cranberry
13:12
and dark chocolate. A nice glass of wine actually
13:15
has about 200 different compounds that the human palate
13:18
can detect. So that's four times as many in
13:20
a cup of coffee as, in a nice glass of wine given that it
13:24
shouldn't be too. Surprising to think that we can
13:27
taste almost anything in a cup of coffee.
13:29
Now, you might be sitting there listening to this podcast for
13:32
one thing wondering why you're listening to it because you have
13:34
to listen to Ryan and I but also wondering well I've never tasted
13:39
cranberry and dark chocolate in the bottle of wine.
13:41
I've had it always just tastes like alcoholic grape juice.
13:44
Well, there are people that are trained to determine these
13:47
flavors and pull them out and to determine what is the difference
13:51
between the taste of raspberry and blueberry.
13:54
And there are people that do that for one.
13:56
But there are also people that do that for coffee and It
13:59
doesn't necessarily have to be a professional to do that.
14:03
We can actually Ryan and I can actually train our pallets to
14:07
pick out. Maybe not quite that much, but
14:09
we can pick out a little bit of some of those flavors.
14:13
That those professional tasters can pull out.
14:15
So there's over 800 different compounds in there.
14:18
We know it's a nice complex coffee.
14:20
We know that it comes from a fruit.
14:23
So one of the flavors that you can look for in your cup of
14:25
coffee is fruit and it doesn't have to be a specific fruit
14:29
like, Blueberry or apple or orange, you can just look for,
14:32
does it taste fruity at all? And fruit taste all comes from
14:36
organic acids, so, organic acids, like citric acid or
14:41
acetic acid, which is just vinegar.
14:44
If you take citric acid and you taste it, it tastes sour.
14:47
And citrusy, you take citric acid and you mix it with sugar
14:51
and you taste it, it tastes juicy like an orange.
14:54
You can actually train your palate to pick out these
14:58
different compounds. Like citric acid and identify
15:01
them specifically and say, okay this coffee has a tasting note
15:05
of lemon. And this copy has a tasting note
15:07
of orange, and maybe the difference is that one has a
15:11
tiny little bit more sugar in it.
15:13
That makes me taste orange instead of lemon, because sugar
15:16
is another naturally occurring, compound in the coffee that you
15:20
should be able or you can train yourself to be able to detect
15:24
Ryan. You asked me about the coffee
15:26
flavor wheel, the coffee flavor. We Wheel is it's a visual
15:30
representation of all the different flavors that are most
15:34
commonly identified in coffee when we taste them and it breaks
15:38
it down into categories. So you'll have one category that
15:41
says fruit and then it'll have subcategories.
15:44
That's a tropical fruit berries, apples /, pear and such, and so
15:50
on. And then it'll have specific
15:52
fruits inside those categories. So what are some common flavors
15:56
that new coffee drinkers can taste in their coffee?
15:59
Well, fruit might be a little bit out there even though it
16:01
comes from fruit and it's a pretty distinct and a weird
16:05
taste still might be a little bit out there for you.
16:08
One of the most common flavors that people taste in coffee.
16:11
This chocolate on our last episode, we talked a little bit
16:15
about bitterness in dark chocolate, and the difference
16:19
between milk, chocolate and dark chocolate, and how we don't
16:23
judge. If you're a milk chocolate eater
16:25
or a dark, chocolate eater and Ryan, I think you actually
16:28
wanted to judge People on that, I do judge people.
16:31
There is only one type of chocolate crisps and it's dark
16:33
chocolate for the purposes of tasting coffee.
16:38
We can identify different kinds of chocolate in the coffee, that
16:41
we're drinking. So, when you're next drinking, a
16:43
cup of coffee, maybe it's the grocery store bag.
16:47
That's, you know, the French roast and gross and disgusting
16:51
lie full of acrylamide and all kinds of other religions.
16:55
Maybe it's your local hipsters, light, roasted, A single origin
17:01
from the slopes of Mount K on produced by villagers that make
17:05
their own pottery. You know, whatever it is.
17:08
There's probably going to be some Taste of chocolate in
17:10
there. So, think about it when you
17:12
drink it and think about the last time you had milk chocolate
17:14
in, the last time you had dark chocolate and think, which does
17:17
this taste like, does it taste like, milk chocolate?
17:19
Does it taste like dark chocolate?
17:21
There are other kinds of chocolate.
17:22
It can taste like, it is like cocoa powder.
17:25
It can tastes like chocolate sauce.
17:28
I can taste like raw. Chocolate like cacao.
17:30
Sure and it's I would interject and just say that this this
17:33
wheel is very elaborate. The first time I saw it, I just
17:36
thought there's no way and you kind of touched on it.
17:39
But whether it's Citrus or chocolate it doesn't, it's not
17:42
as simple as just saying. Well, it tastes like this other
17:44
food. There's also like the concept of
17:47
flavors whether it's Savory or spicy or earthy rosti, you know,
17:52
those flavors that you're pulling out and I think I'm
17:55
being rude here and interrupting our expert.
17:57
But what I would say is the thing that I learned from you,
17:59
The was when I'm drinking a cup of coffee in am interested.
18:02
I'm not just drinking it on the go or something is to actually
18:05
pay attention to what flavors are in my mouth and I was really
18:09
shocked at how quickly I was able to start picking things out
18:12
and I may not have been able to identify them at the time, but
18:17
by looking at the the flavor wheel I might have gotten a
18:19
better idea of it and now it's become a little bit more, second
18:22
nature. When I try a new coffee, I can
18:24
go. Oh, well this is got kind of an
18:26
interesting, you know, earthy flavor to it.
18:28
And then I To get you know nerdy I'll look up your color wheel
18:31
and maybe I'm wrong here but I think really just drinking a cup
18:34
of coffee and paying attention is so much different than just
18:37
drinking a cup of coffee. Absolutely.
18:39
And it's cool to have tools like the flavor wheel to help us sort
18:43
of figure out what we are paying attention to.
18:46
But yeah, that's absolutely. The number one step is to just
18:50
pay attention to it and think about what you're tasting
18:52
because you might not have ever thought that coffee tastes like
18:54
chocolate before. But it does, it's actually
18:57
scientific. There's there's a So many of the
19:00
same compounds that are present in chocolate are present in
19:03
coffee and so yeah. So there's a couple of flavors
19:05
that you can kind of look for and look out.
19:06
For fruit is one, chocolate is one.
19:09
And then the last one that I like to point out as like an
19:12
early, like what do you start looking for is sweetness.
19:15
Obviously coffee without sugar is not sweet, but there are
19:20
Trace Amounts of sugars in cups of coffee, that's why it has
19:23
caloric value about five calories in a cup of coffee, and
19:27
sometimes it'll taste sugar. Hurry sweet other times.
19:30
It'll taste molasses sweet other times.
19:32
It'll taste like toffee or caramel again, just pay
19:36
attention to what you're tasting and you're going to maybe be
19:39
surprised by how quickly you can start pulling some stuff out.
19:42
But you know, if you're still having trouble, do it with a
19:45
friend, do it silently to yourself?
19:47
Try to try to think about what you can taste in there and then
19:50
you might be surprised when you go to compare notes or thoughts
19:54
or whatever and say, oh wow, we both got dark chocolate out of
19:58
that instead of milk chocolate. Cool.
19:59
Maybe we're onto something and it kind of should be kind of fun
20:03
and it's sort of a it's a nice thing to do to sort of be more
20:06
mindful about what you're what you're consuming.
20:09
Absolutely. If you want to know why I get so
20:11
anxious T about blueberry and coffee, everyone.
20:14
You'll have to stop by coffee cycle and ask Chris, and he can
20:16
tell you the story behind it. I'm not going to share it with
20:19
you here today. That's that's your homework for.
20:20
Everyone has to go to coffee cycle and asked Chris about
20:23
blueberries. And if I hear back that, you
20:26
know, 100 people showed up there and ask about blueberries.
20:28
I will be a very happy - thank you again, for coming on roast
20:33
West Coast, helping us get a little coffee smarter this week,
20:36
appreciate it. And I'll talk to you next week,
20:38
as always, it's a real treat Ryan and I'm almost finished my
20:41
coffee. So it's about time for me to go.
20:43
Anyway, I've heard Chris talk about all this stuff before.
20:54
I've heard him, talk about it, probably more than once, but
20:58
it's a nice primer for You go back and listen along with you
21:01
because I am absolutely not a coffee expert.
21:04
And even though I spend a lot of time, thinking about writing
21:07
about and talking about coffee, I don't live it every single
21:10
day, the way the coffee smarter, experts and coffee Pros on the
21:13
show. Do thank you for checking in
21:15
this week to brush up on your coffee knowledge.
21:18
And thanks to Chris for letting me share this content in
21:20
perpetuity, it's pretty amazing. We've made it this far.
21:25
In fact, I'm recording this in what has to be the biggest storm
21:28
I can remember. Ena SoCal December, and we lost
21:31
power about five hours ago. I'm hoping that it comes back on
21:35
soon. So I have time to log in and
21:36
upload this Classics Episode by the morning before I go.
21:40
Today, I want to say thank you for the help.
21:42
I've received from my industry Partners including Cafe litter.
21:45
Most your coffee coffee cycle, Maria coffee leap, coffee zoom,
21:50
bar coffee, and tea, first light, whiskey Camp coffee
21:53
company and Cape Horn coffee importers.
21:56
They've been a big support to this show and I honestly, Know
21:59
if I would have made it this far without their help new season 4
22:02
episodes will start dropping the first week of February 20 22
22:07
until then had to roast westcoast.com to check out all
22:10
of the other coffee content on the newsletter.
22:13
This episode of the roast West Coast coffee podcast is was has
22:18
been written produced and recorded by me Ryan Walt.
22:22
I hope this show is found you happy healthy and with, at least
22:26
enough sanity to make it through the day.
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And please always tip your Baristas and be sure to drink
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good coffee.