Well, last Sunday we went on a short family holiday to Greece and I cannot say it was very relaxing, but it was different at least.
We travelled about 6 hours to our destination and the kids were not that happy about such a long drive without much movement. We expected that of course, but really it’s a rather long distance and I really prefer closer locations, especially when it’s a travel with the kids. Other than that, Greece is very nice and when you know some nice beeches, you’ll really end up with a pretty beautiful experiences.
Of course, I wasn’t expecting any special and relatively good coffee gear at the place we were renting, so I decided to bring some coffee and make cold brew. At least that was the plan, but eventually I forgot my filters, so I had to stick to the available coffee maker.
It was of this kind filter machines which is like 30 years old. I never liked the coffee from this kind of coffee machines. You really cannot control the amount of extraction and when I don’t have the properly ground coffee, I will definitely end with a pretty awful cup of coffee. But, I decided it was worth at least trying and see what I really can achieve.
I was very surprised to find out that this coffee maker can make up to 12 cups of coffee, and I decided to start with about 4 cups. As I was guessing, the coffee in my cup wasn’t good at all. And I have made a really nice and clean cold brew coffees with this exact type of commercial coffee. At least I found some very artistic and cool looking cups, which were making an excellent pair with the outdoors table.
Eventually I found a way to make the coffee pleasurable to drink. The solution was adding some more water and like a ton of ice. I ended up with a coffee about similar to my cold brews, which were happily enjoyed at the beach.
But… now we are back home and I cannot be more happy because I have the chance to play a bit with my grinder settings. I’m still trying to find the best size setting for the V60 coffee. I reached to a level that’s a lot finer than last week’s, but I’m still not in the proper size for the best filter coffee.
You don’t forget about the small hole before pouring the first water for the blooming phase, right?
So, about the grinding size, you can really see the difference from the last week when I was at 40 grind setting. Now I’m at 34 and the overall brewing time is like 5 seconds longer. It was 2:20 last week, at grinding level 40 and now it’s 2:25 at the 34 level. Of course, coffee is much more intensive, but going finer to about 31-32 would definitely be better. I feel that I’m really close to the perfect V60 cup of coffee with this grinder.
Now I’m enjoying again a beautiful Kenya Nyeri Gatugi coffee, which is a washed process coffee. There are different ways of processing the coffee cherries and they end up with a very different taste profiles of the final product. If you have the same coffee from the same farm and the same growing conditions, but process it differently, you’ll really see a major flavor change.
The processing is divided into three methods which are known as natural, washed and honey.
The washed or wet process is is the one that you’ll find in the most specialty coffees as it focuses on the real taste profiles of the coffee beans. The beans are being put into water after removing the outer layer of the cherry and they are being fermented for 1-2 days. Then the inner part of the cherry is also being removed and the beans are dried. This way of processing really highlights the true flavor of the coffee and is preferred for specialty coffee and especially the single origin coffee varieties.
The natural process is very different and it builds up some funky flavors in coffee beans. The cherries are left to ferment whole after quick washing, without removing the outer part. Then some fermentation occurs naturally and the naturally processed coffees can often have some whiskey, and rum notes, as well as some ripe fruit flavors usually described as pineapple, mango and other tropical fruits. Naturally processed coffees are different world and some regular coffee lovers can find this type of coffee not pleasurable. The process also adds some acidity to the final product, but, well this was the traditional Ethiopian way of processing the coffee beans.
The honey process is maybe less popular than the other two, but it can be still found in some specialty coffees, but is very common for coffees from Costa Rica. It adds some sweet notes when processing the beans, because a part of the muculage (the inner part of coffee cherries) is left on the beans. This mucilage resembles honey, so this gave the name of this type of processing.
What remains form the cherry a really sweet part of it and this is the origin of the sweeter overall taste.
Now, after you know more about the coffee I’ll reward you with a spilled cup of beans photo. This most likely will have a good impact on you and you’ll go and brew yourself a cup of tasty coffee.
Enjoy and have a nice weekend!
