The ship carrying our precious cargo docked. Our shipment full of really special single-estate coffee beans arrived cool, fresh and blue. Kindling, kindling everywhere…and they are sparky!

Roasting and cupping, followed by more roasting and cupping, the coffee offer wonders piled upon new wonder - a succulent grapefruity Kenya, a deep and complex Guatemala, a floral and creamy Rwanda, an initially bracing Colombia which later brimmed with butterscotch, a peanut butter sandwich of a Brasil, the archetypal apricot Yirgacheffe - to note a few.

There are always crazies in the mix, diva types and oddballs, like the aged Java. Roasting him unbuckles his straightjacket so I’m a bit wary of releasing him. There’s a Cup of Excellence which came with an entourage of special packaging demanding star treatment, and I’ve yet to make up my mind whether to go heavy metal or opera.

Sparks flew and whistled on the cupping table, some brighter and louder than others, some detonated on my face, while some punched the black depths of coffee.

Happy New Day, coffee.

But it can be better…infinitely.

There are many things involved in making coffee. Many work very well. Thankfully some of these things can work a little better if they can be pulled apart and put back together in better shape.

Better encompasses not just faster or bigger. It can also mean easier, and in the world of coffee, tastier. All this just makes the inner tinkerer in us sleepless with ideas and questions.

After a few twilight meanderings, I set out to tinker with my BNZ conical grinder.

I have done away with the doser, and here it is in [non]dosing action. Much faster too as the redundant thwack-thwack pulling of the doser lever is obviated.


Without the doser, the grinder’s velocity is laid bare and the funnel shapes the torrent of grinds into a clean vortex. The descending tornado is dangerously mesmerising.


The result of the coffee alchemist’s tinkering: a static-free, clump-free, well-distributed mound of ground coffee.

Every bean ground is expressed in the cup.
Every lifting of the hand is for the purpose of making coffee.
Everything the barista does uniquely is because the coffee dictates it.
Coffee is imaginary until tried and tasted.

Given the recent CoffeeSnobs discussion around the Mountaintop Bin 549, the last discipline gains relevance. This is the coffee I chose to compete with in the Australian Barista Championship 2008, and thus come to try and taste and know very well. So it is with slight surprise that I come across discontent with the “greenness” of this coffee and suggestions that it should be rested a few months before trying. Like rough cut gem, “green”, that quality indicating the freshness of the crop and hinting at undeveloped, unripe and sour attributes of fruit, can be transformed by a curious hand. There is less promise in squeezing life out of an old crop.

For those with some greens and eager to leap out of the imaginary, here are my encounters and some things I’ve learned about the Bin 549:

Moisture-laden - this bean is heavy with moisture, though also rather soft. I usually apply a bit more heat in the early stages of roasting, but not too much as I want a bit more material to work with once first crack starts.

Super exotherm – when it reaches the crest and starts to spew forth heat, the rapidly flickering temperature readout reflects the monstrous energy release of this bean. If I do not apply heat restraints before first crack, the roast can easily bolt and difficult to rein in during first and second cracks. I still want a fully-realised first crack, but I don’t want it to take the rest of the roast with it.

Green gives good play - I achieve a more balanced cup and tone down the greenness if I stretch out the time from first crack to end of roast (between 4-5minutes; 4 minutes for more fruit, while 5 result in more body and balance). Providing there is still a lot left in the bean, it will yield to more shaping beyond 5 minutes, though I am not personally inclined to this style.

Green inspires art - I achieve the cup I want (abundant fruit, good body) if I extinguish all heat just before the beans enter second crack, let them come into second, apply a bit more air to cushion the impact and ease the momentum of crackling, stretch it, stretch it…then quickly into the cooling tray. Further shredding of the green is possible by letting the beans languor in their afterglow in the cooling tray for a few seconds before turning on the cooling fan.

May the flame be with you.

Then some kind friends, returning from far-flung coffee metropoles like Portland, drop by with contraband. As reward for my tips of reliable coffee haunts they come bearing Stumptown’s Hairbender and Ethiopia Tega and Tula repacked in my zipped valved bags.

Precious!

As espresso the Hairbender is every bit the legends make of it. It breaks in your mouth singing, seeks to fill the nooks and crannies then leaves with a deep lumbering hum. Bright, deep, complex.

The Ethiopia, is, well…grace. How does one describe grace bestowed in a demitasse? I can say groves and groves of ripe bursting fruits berry citrus and musky passionfruit succulent and sweet my mouth gurgling and guilty with juice. There are better words out there for this.

I wish coffee isn’t so ephemeral as I cling to a waning fistful hopeful that a coffee kindred can also see. But Mr Snuffleupagus leaves before anyone arrives.

In August last year, I fell in love with this single-estate Australian coffee and I’ve been drinking it since then almost every morning through my vacuum brewer. In a realm ruled by espresso, I wished more could catch a glimpse of this coffee brewed this way.

So for my 15 minutes of competition time, in the NSW Barista Championship 2008, I decided to introduce this coffee to the judges through a cupping before I proceeded with the competition drinks - espresso, cappuccino and signature drink. With this extra course not having any bearing on the scores of the actual competition drinks, I still took time to offer judges a cupping of my coffee. I wanted them to experience the coffee in its barest form, before the mediations of espresso machine, milk and other things.

All the NSW sensory judges appreciated what I did and encouraged me to continue on the same path to the national competition. Things could not have been more different at the Australian Barista Championship 2008 finals.

I was informed that the judges will not be permitted to drink anything I offer them other than the competition drinks as I quote in the emailed notice:
“Baristas may choose to serve extra elements as part of their performance, but the judges will not be permitted to consume them or interact with them at all.”

I gave this much thought and I decided to still go ahead with a cupping. Cupping coffee is not incidental to what I do. It is fundamental. And I am not afraid to cup alone.

To my surprise and glee (an invitation to cup is the most heartfelt respect one coffee industry person can give to another and acceptance is respect reciprocated) the judges cupped with me. The ecstasy continued the rest of the 15 minutes I was accorded.

To my surprise and consternation, much later after the competition and during the judges debriefing, it was revealed to me that the judges handed me heavy penalties for the cupping. My cupping was considered a palate cleanser even though I made no mention of it being such and apparently it stood as my espresso offering. Thus all my espresso taste and tactile balance points were nulled, though it confounds me that the other espresso components like colour and consistency of crema etc. remained intact and counted. The judges’ total impression scores were also adjusted for penalties.

The agony sets…heavy, hanging and at times inextricable. Coffee has always guided me through bright constellations. In rare instances like these, it seems, coffee cannot repel the voids and holes.

Not all is dark as I leave the competition. A South Melbourne roaster offers the bright sparks of his cauldron and invites me for cupping. I accept. Ahh…the ecstasy and the agony and the ecstasy.

…and the slow burning fury.

    It was no doubt a most eye-opening
    experience! What a thrill, to have cupped
    alongside some of the world’s best cuppers
    - from coffee-growing origins to green
    bean suppliers in coffee-buying countries.
    Congratulations to Anette Moldvaer
    from Mercanta in England whose
    performance was nothing short of stellar.

    It was unnerving to be in the first set
    of cuppers to go up on stage (actually
    I was in the No.1 slot - a slot I never got much joy in any competition) and not have the slightest idea where the bar is at in terms of time. I did very well registering 7 correct cups (out of 8 ), though a fraction faster time may have secured me a spot on the semi-finals.

As I sat down to watch the rest of the cuppers, I was in awe. Alf Kramer, who designed the competition and presided over the proceedings, mentioned the 3 skills at play: natural skills, concentration skills, and skills developed by experience. There was great depth of skill displayed by the cuppers in the semi-finals. They may have cupped only 24 coffees in one round, but you get a sense of the thousands of coffees that have passed through their spoons.

I return to Sydney rearing to sharpen further the skills and insights I have developed. How much further, I am only too thrilled to imagine.

All these just make coffee an even bigger universe to marvel at.

These are what we’ve defined as Stage 1 and Stage 2 of the Coffee Alchemy Pour Spectrum.

This is Stage 3 and the final moment just as we stop the pour.

To this day I remain haunted by it, even more so now that it has acquired the mystique of a pot of gold out of my reach for ages because a certain transnational corporation (known to char the living smithereens out of beans) has bought out future crops. So I have gone accustomed to working with the accessible and consistent, but less vertiginous, Sumatra Kuda Mas.

   …until a few days ago when I picked up a
   new crop Kuda Mas and ran my fingers
   through the beans. The smell was fresh
   turned forest floor with a mixture of moss
   and must in the distance, and the beans
   were unconventionally less patchy, more
   uniform throughout the bean, larger, denser,
   cooler… The cup had heft but the structure
   was gangly and awkward, trying to assert
   its baritone birthright but crackling along the way.

I will research on the impact of airtight storage on polysaccharides and low-molecular weight sugars in green beans, and in turn what this does or doesn’t do to some of my favourite odorants and their derivatives - phenols, furans and pyrans. In the meantime, I’ve to find me some empty barrels…

So apart it comes: panels, pipes, fittings, probe and boiler - all destined for descaling and scrubbing. The temperature probe suffered the worst and was wasted. A new one adorns the boiler neck now.

Then, when the parts are gleaming and free, reconstruction takes place with new gaskets, o-rings and sealant. All become one again.

Taking in new water, the pipes hiss and the fan hums. I watch as beads of water break out under the hex screw and tighten. The Linea awakes…!

   For years, I have stowed a disparate
   assortment of brewers and grinders in my
   luggage to maintain the coffee loop when
   away from the roastery. Packing the french
   press was always a challenge. Travelling
   overseas required a search for appropriate
   adaptors never mind the inextricable puzzle
   of voltage differences. Still, I lugged.

Lately, however, I realised how things had gotten wonderfully simple - no more plug problems, no more breakage anxieties, and a lighter load off the turnstile. The coffee? Amazing!

In true coffee fashion (read: hello serendipity), this new evolution happened when I forgot to pack the french press. With only fresh-off-the-tray Holy Hildegard! and a hand grinder in tow, the most obvious brewing option was a conventional cupping.

True cupping is far more complex, but for travelling, cupping goes like this:
> turn kettle on
> while the kettle’s going, start grinding (a heaped tablespoon gives me roughly 8g, perfect)
> let kettle sit off the boil for a few seconds
> warm cup with hot water, discard
> put grinds in cup
> pour hot water over coffee making sure all grounds are wetted
> let infuse for 3-5 minutes
> break the crust (smell!)
> skim surface of residual grinds
> drink (slowly)…

…watch borders fade and timezones shrivel the strange becomes home to a well-known ritual.