Posts by George Darroch
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er that you have to push down against – which can be hard to do. The water is being forced through the grinds as you push down, but the fine grind ‘mats’ together preventing relatively easy passage of water.
I prefer a relatively fine grind in plungers, which gives you more surface area and (in my experience) a stronger brew. You can adjust the pressure and press down more slowly. No such luck in other machines, of course.
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Win?Strange expression. You are in a dark cave: You find a grue.
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This matches the way Australian cafes so coffee – if you order a latte, you’ll get a neat glass, not a massive bowl.
Yes. NZ cafes have wonderfully large bowls, so you can have the most aerated latte ever, and still get a decent drink.
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I remember how excited we were when our Aunt gave us her used percolator.
I didn’t drink an espresso til 2002, when I was in my first year of uni. Partly, the culture wasn’t established then, and partly the idea of spending $3 on a cup of coffee just didn’t make sense in my family.
What an amazing experience that first latte was. I’d gone vegan by then, so my experience of cafe culture, in NZ and elsewhere is entirely in soy and simple espresso/long black/americano. I find that in Wellington I can trust most places to make a soy latte or cappucino, but elsewhere I’m better off just getting a flat white. Steam burns through soy a lot more easily, so the less frothing in untrained hands, the better. I’ve done it behind a counter myself and I don’t think it’s that hard, but it seems to be for a lot of cafe staff. Vitasoy have released a cafe specific product which should improve things in NZ, for both the competent and the not-so-competent.
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A journalist of my acquaintance who grew up going to church and thence to Parachute assures me that there was much more devillish behaviour at Parachute than is commonly acknowledged ;-)
Like everybody really stays in their own tent.
I went a few times growing up, and had plenty of "first" experiences in that context. One time the organisers called the police down to our tent, because they were sure we were up to no good. They didn't find anything, of course. That was the summer in which we bought up a lot of a then unknown chemical we knew as "bzp". Everybody wondered why we were dancing insanely for 10 hours at a stretch...
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I learnt that if an Ethiopian invites you to pop round for coffee you should allow a couple of hours!
Ah, yes. I had a similar experience with a bunch of Eritrean men a couple of years back. Coffee in the Horn of Africa is traditionally a woman's business, but they'd all been in the army and learned the practices. Delicious, if ridiculously sweet (far sweeter than any coffee I've ever had before or since).
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Hard News: Because it's about time we…, in reply to Stephen Judd,
That is ridiculously easy. With its lower acidity and coolness, it might be the basis for some more interesting creations...
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They say their coffee will go up by $2.30 per kg. Guess we’ll all be paying more for our coffees.
From USD$1.50/kg on the open market to $2.30 is what I've read as well. I make a completely uninformed guess and say that will push prices up by at least NZ $2/kg retail. It might be enough to put cafes on squeezed margins up another 30cents a cup.
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There’s nothing wrong with good plunger coffee. The usual rules apply: use freshly roasted beans, grind them just before use, keep your equipment clean.
And importantly, don't burn the coffee with boiling water. 100C burns it - coffee isn't tea - 88-93C is where you should aim for, although a little on either side won't hurt. Surprisingly, very few people seem to know this. Stovetop burners which force scalding hot water through the coffee are absolutely terrible for this reason. Coffee will always be bitter with one of those.
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In any small one bejak town in Indonesia, Malaysia or Thailand you can find incredible coffee – it just may not come out of an espresso machine. The best caffeine hit I’ve had anywhere on this planet can be found in a small riverside retro cafe in Ratchaburi – slow dripped black syrup onto a bed of sweetened milk.
Can vouch he's telling the truth. I'd swap kopi Jawa or kopi Aceh for espresso nine times out of ten. These are places which were in regular cultural and trade contact with the Arabian peninsular since the time coffee developed in the 16th century. There's a reason why coffee is often known as "java" (as much as I hate that as a generic term). They've had time to work out what works well. Unfortunately, real coffee grounds are quickly being replaced by generic packet grounds, which are cheaper and easier for desperately poor vendors to pour into from their over-the-shoulder thermos flasks.
Espresso is just one way to extract a bean with water, there are plenty others. I'd love for some of the NZ cafes to start experimenting with other methods (they probably already are, I speak in ignorance at the moment).