Modern coffee aficionados, it
seems, believe - nay, insist – that the beans must be roasted
en route to the grinder, which must be employed immediately, and the coffee
brewed in the next instant. No delay is
permitted for any reason. Beans roasted anything longer than two and a half
minutes before brewing are stale, tasteless,
aroma-less, and do not produce anything resembling a good crema. This is the gospel of
good coffee as I (an inveterate tea-drinker) understand it. I have no doubt that I will be corrected if I
am wrong.
I don’t know what the Barista
Gospel says about the optimum age of coffee beans before they are roasted, however. I don’t ever remember seeing or
hearing any argument at all on the subject. I was surprised then, by the
following opinion, extracted from an article on coffee in The Food Journal (London, 1874)
“Coffee is much
improved by age. An esteemed acquaintance, who was a part proprietor of one of
the most magnificent properties in Ceylon, used to keep his coffee in bins in a
dry room in his house in London, and was wont to give it to his friends, at his
hospitable board, a great treat in the shape of a most delicious cup of coffee
that had been kept some eight or ten years.”
I think it unlikely that this man
had a coffee roaster in his house, and assume therefore that the beans with
which he treated his guests had been roasted ten years previously. I eagerly
await advice from one of the coffee experts amongst you on this idea.
As for the recipe for the day, I give
you a couple of ideas from a Prohibition-inspired book which has been our source
on other occasions - On Uncle Sam’s Water
Wagon: 500 recipes for delicious drinks, which can be made at home (New
York, 1919) by Helen Watkeys Moore. Coffee purists may take issue with the
concepts below, so if you are one of them, and are easily offended, may I respectfully
suggest that you do not read further?
Boiled Coffee
Allow one
tablespoonful of finely ground coffee to one cup of boiling water. Put clean
eggshells in the pot, or a whole egg is beaten with a little cold water and
mixed with the coffee before the boiling water is poured on. Put on the stove,
and when it comes to a boil, take off cover and remove from fire. Let stand two
or three minutes, then cover and return to the fire until it again comes to a
boil. Remove at once, let stand five minutes, and it is then ready to serve.
Hot Coffee and
Strawberry.
Break one egg into a
shaker with one and one half tablespoonfuls each of vanilla and strawberry syrups
and two tablespoonfuls of rich cream. Shake well, pour into glass, and fill up
with hot coffee. Add whipped cream.
Hot Malted Milk and
Coffee
Mix one teaspoonful
of malted milk and one teaspoonful of ground coffee with enough hot water to
fill a cup. Boil three minutes, sweeten to taste, and strain.
Quotation
for the Day.
For Lo! The board with cups and
spoons is crowned,
The berries crackle and the mill
turns round.
Pope, Rape of the Lock.
8 comments:
I don't know where you read your "gospel of good coffee", but you certainly seem to know some heretics and voodoo practitioners.
For one, many roasted coffees need a good 24 hours to even up to several days of resting after their roasting to fully "gas out". If you don't let fresh roasted beans rest, the resulting coffee can taste rather funky, flat, or quite literally "gassy". This is why many bags of roasted coffee are sold with a one-way valve on the packaging.
As for the optimum age of coffee beans before they are roasted, the conventional wisdom is everywhere -- thus I'm shocked you've never found it. While green coffee beans can hold up to aging far better than roasted coffee, they still lose their flavor and grow stale as any organic product does. So typically you want to roast them as close to the crop readiness as possible. You'll notice loss of flavor within 6-12 months.
I don't know where you read your "gospel of good coffee", but you certainly seem to know some heretics and voodoo practitioners.
For one, many roasted coffees need a good 24 hours to even up to several days of resting after their roasting to fully "gas out". If you don't let fresh roasted beans rest, the resulting coffee can taste rather funky, flat, or quite literally "gassy". This is why many bags of roasted coffee are sold with a one-way valve on the packaging.
As for the optimum age of coffee beans before they are roasted, the conventional wisdom is everywhere -- thus I'm shocked you've never found it. While green coffee beans can hold up to aging far better than roasted coffee, they still lose their flavor and grow stale as any organic product does. So typically you want to roast them as close to the crop readiness as possible. You'll notice loss of flavor within 6-12 months.
John Calypso over at
http://www.vivaveracruz.com/blog/?p=844
posted a whole series on raising and roasting coffee beans in Mexico. He says 3 years for un-roasted beans, 3 months for roasted-un-ground beans and 3 to 5 days for grounded beans. I, like you, am a tea drinker and use instant coffee in my cooking to enhance the flavor of my chocolate. LOL, I can hear the groans from here!
Dear Old Foodie: Please read your Beeton or Kitchener. Roasting coffee beans was done in a cast iron skillet. I suspect that the beans in bins are not roasted, lacking evidence to the contrary. The beans would have a bit of butter added at the end of the pan roasting to prevent sticking. While coffee roasting was a commercial endeavor in the 1870s, I believe it was also done at home, as the beans were less expensive. And certainly one could then be assured of freshly roasted beans as well.
Hi Janet:
I am a coffee lover and have noticed the re-emergence of aged coffees on the market over the last decade or so.
In an attempt to emulate historical coffees that were accidently aged during long sea voyages, some Indonesian and Indian coffee plantations are now deliberately aging green beans for 5-8 years prior to the sale of unroasted product.
The taste of these coffees is very roast dependent and can vary a great deal from enjoyable to gaggable depending on the type and quality of roast.
For well roasted (Full City+ recommended)coffees the cupping scores are in the high 80s - a respectable score.
I've got a post coming up on the value of aging - curry pastes, sauces, many condiments - intended to rail against the raw and fresh gospel that surrounds us.
Laura
Some interesting,and conflicting concepts coming up here folks, in response to my somewhat tongue-in-cheek post.
I am going to watch this topic with interest.
Is there a parallel here with the prestige associated with aged rice in Japan?
Dufour in the 17th century stated that roasted coffee was't meant to be kept for any length of time, so you could say that the prominent western concept of how coffee "should" taste is based on the freshly roasted and ground stuff.
I think it's safest to say that it's all just a matter of custom and fashion - "slow" coffee vs espresso, anyone?
I do wonder, tea-loving Old Foodie, what you're opinion is of aged tea. I've never tried it, but the concept seems to conjur up the same issues as aged coffee.
Hi Bart
I agree - the 'shoulds' of food and drink are often what is considered fashionable. And we all know that fashions come and go - and come back again.
As for aged tea: I am wont to say that "if it is tea, I like it" - i just like some more than others. I have never, however, tried aged tea. I will look into it
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