First Crack Media

Random Brew Recipe:  75g coffee / 1 kg water, 5 minute brew time.

Brew Method: French Press
Actual Recipe: 37g coffee, 500g water at 198F
Coffee: New Harvest Coffee Roasters’ Rwanda Coko Coop

Notes notes notes: I’ve gotten to know this coffee pretty well over the last little while; at its very best it presents a delicate, floral sweetness, really reminiscent of melon or peach, with a fairly creamy mouthfeel and out-of-this-world aromatics.

At these parameters, the taste experience became shorter and more tart, when hot it was like an underripe peach, as it cooled it really more resembled that first bite of a grapefruit: tart and tangy. It was surprisingly aggressive in its acidity, given both the press pot and the regularly mellow nature of the Coko. I don’t think it would be for everyone; it’s a little like an espresso brightness bomb – almost too big. But I kind of liked to see this side of the coffee.

I’d give it a 7/10.

Random Brew Recipe:  77g coffee / 1 kg water, 2 minute brew time.

Brew Method: French Press
Actual Recipe: 77g coffee, 1000g water at 198F
Coffee: New Harvest Coffee Roasters’ Whisper Espresso

Notes notes notes: Boom! This coffee hit hard. Even with the reduced brew time, the upped dosage of a blend intended for espresso via a French Press was a bold choice. It was a hearty cup for sure, but rather than the sweetness and creamy body of the espresso, it was a punch of underextracted sourpatch kids.

It’s probably too obvious to say, but I’m surprised at how different coffees are more or less flexible across random parameters. As an espresso, Whisper is incredibly forgiving, offering interesting notes through brew ratios of 1:1 – 1:1.5,  all the way up to 1:2 sometimes. I’ve had this coffee in drip form and really enjoyed it. Anecdotally, my own preferences seem to lean toward acceptance of subtle and delicate tastes (what some might call weak or underdeveloped?) but a bit put off by intense ristretto or sour flavors.

The Random Brew Generator has much to teach, it would seem!

I’d give the brew a 6/10. Just didn’t do it for me.

Hopedale, MA tomorrow for Q retakes!

Random Brew Recipe:  45g coffee / 1 kg water, 5 minute brew time.

Brew Method: Clever
Actual Recipe: 20g coffee, 445g water at 198F
Coffee: Costa Rica Tarrazu, in-house fluid air bed roasted (aka popcorn popper)

Notes notes notes: This is about 1/3 less coffee than I would usually use, and about 1-2 minutes longer than I would brew with for a Clever. One thing this random brew generator has gotten me to is an appreciation for the hugely variable ways in which coffee can taste good. Not great, or life-changing, but just good.

I would have anticipated this cup being thin and unpleasant – and the body is lacking, surely, but it is only unpleasantly so during its warmest stages – as it cools the body remains unremarkable but a bit of sweetness comes out, and it rounds out the finish in a really nice way. A bit nutty, a little caramel near the end – this cup is not great art. It’s not direct traded and I don’t have any idea what I’m doing with the IHFABR (that’s in-house fluid air bed roaster), at least not yet – but this cup is still good. I’ll finish it.

I’d give it a 7/10. Not awful, and not life-changing, but totally OK.

Random Brew Recipe:  77g coffee / 1 kg water, 3 minute brew time.

Brew Method: V60 using an American Coffee Trader cloth filter
Actual Recipe: 23g coffee, 300g water at 198F
Coffee: Mad Cap Coffee Burundi Gacokwe

Notes notes notes: First, grinding this coffee smelled awesome. Sweet and light and promising.

The hot aroma is almost buttery, and the body of this coffee at this brew recipe is really standout. It has a soft peak of acidity, round with notes of some stonefruit, maybe melon? It finishes soft but drawn out. This is a really nice cup. The dosage is a bit higher than I would have usually used, but I think it really worked out well in conjunction with the cloth filter. I am interested in another cup for sure.

I’d give it a 9/10.

Random Brew Recipe:  37g coffee / 1 kg water, 4 minute brew time.

Brew Method: Bonavita into Chemex
Actual Recipe: 37g coffee, 1 kg water at 200F
Coffee: New Harvest Coffee Roasters’ Rwanda Coko

Notes notes notes: This coffee I am fairly familiar with. It’s offered by a few roasters, each of whom have their own take. One of our employees recently competed in the NERBC using this coffee. It is actually going to be our first single-origin retail offering as well – so I’ve had this coffee a time or two. As such, it seemed like a good chance to use the RBG with a familiar coffee and an unfamiliar method. So, I used the Bonavita in the lab to brew into a large Chemex – and the 37g of coffee looked like a woefully small amount.

I was expecting the combination of a low throw weight with an odd brewing system to produce a washed-out cup, with much of the brew water passing the coffee entirely and what was left overextracting like crazy. As you can see in the photo, the Bonavita did not overfill the Chemex, though it kept the water level higher than I would have if I were brewing it by hand.

Honestly? It was tasty, and not unlike what I would have expected from a low dose using a special kettle. I shared with the incoming espresso training, and they liked it even more than I did – calling it ‘subtle’ and ‘tea-like,’ which are accurate descriptors. It had the same melon sweetness at the finish that New Harvest’s Coko always shows, as well as an awesome clarity – body, was lacking, but the combination of low dose and hearty Chemex filter probably had something to do with that. I’m going to play with this brewing combination a bit more – though with less random inputs, perhaps.

I’d give it a 7/10. It’s delicate and sweet and subtle, though a bit simple and thin.

Random Brew Recipe:  63g coffee / 1 kg water, 2 minute brew time.

Brew Method: Aeropress (inverted)
Actual Recipe: 13g coffee, 200g water at 198F
Coffee: Tonx Burundi

Notes notes notes: This recipe is not far off of my usual specs for a general brew, though I admittedly usually updose a bit for my Aeropress consumption (closer to 72g / L). The 2 minute brew time was about right, and in keeping the brew as scientific as possible, I messed around with it as little as possible – which is tough! For whatever reason, I recognize now that I have really added a lot of little steps to my Aeropress routine (pour 100g, stir, wait 10 seconds, pour 120g, etc etc) – so this pared-down version was nice.

Random Brew Recipe:  71g coffee / 1 kg water, 5 minute brew time.

Brew Method: French Press
Actual Recipe: 36g coffee, 500g water at 198F
Coffee: New Harvest Coffee Roasters’ Ethiopia Gera Jimma

Notes notes notes: These settings provided an interesting cup for me.

Aroma-wise, there is a subtle brown sugar sweetness, which is light and pleasant. The coffee itself has that very present body you would expect from a French Press, but the flavor is thin and relatively simple. It is a quick flavor experience, with some simple acidity leading into a sweet, quick finish. It’s a fine coffee, but it’s surprisingly unsatisfying. Here’s why:

- These settings are quite close to a brew last week that was very good, albeit with a different coffee.
- The combination of a relatively high does and relatively long brew time in a French Press challenges my assumptions about coffee extraction and flavor notes.

When I consider how the spectrum of coffee extraction affects the flavor of the resulting brew, I usually associate thinness and astringent finish with overextraction, whereas a quick flavor experience, sour initial flavors, and oily body with underextraction. These general rules seem to work pretty well with espresso and drip brewing, but full-immersion brewing is more challenging for me. That is, a drip brew’s later extraction is necessarily associated with the passage of additional water – meaning that the thin body may be caused by the additional water rather than by drawing out thinning agents (thinning agents?)  from the bean itself.

With immersion brewing, I need to adjust my thinking, and consider perhaps surface area more. Time to revisit Everything But Espresso again!

I’d give this brew a 6 / 10.

Random Brew Recipe:  52g coffee / 1 kg water, 2 minute brew time.

Brew Method: French Press
Actual Recipe: 26g coffee, 500g water at 198F
Coffee: New Harvest Coffee Roasters’ El Salvador Santa Rita Chalatenango

Notes notes notes: This random recipe is only a bit smaller in dosage than I’d usually use (about 10% less) and the brew time is half what I would usually go with (though yesterday’s brew has me considering a longer brew time as default). To move the brew toward what I’d expect to be a more pleasant extraction, I tightened the grind slightly, to the 12 o’clock position on the ol’ Bunn bulk grinder. The nature of a French Press doesn’t always reward grinding finer, so I hedged my bets for sure.

As with many of these lighter-dosed recipes, the aroma was very subtle, more a sensation of heat and steam than any actual notable aromas. The coffee liquor was very light-bodied, even thin, surprisingly so for a press pot. The flavors were mostly lacking; the sensations were mostly tactile, heat, thicker than water but still quite thin, with a slight round sweetness toward the end, reminiscent of an herbal tea. This became more pronounced as it cooled, though with the thin body and uninteresting flavor, it wasn’t enough to make what I’d think of as a good cup. It also wasn’t a bad cup, just thin and kind of boring. It did not demonstrate any of what I think of as poor extraction off-flavors.

I’d give it a 5/10. It’s coffee-flavored coffee.