Hipsterland
Mit der Zeit ist es so eine Sache. Völlig frei verfügbare Zeit nimmt ab und dies führt dazu, dass man sich genau überlegt, wo man sie investiert. Meine Zeit habe ich über viele Jahre in diesen Blog investiert. Als mehrfacher Papa haben sich die Prioritäten jedoch verschoben. Zudem hat der Blog zuletzt nicht mehr seinen eigentlichen Zweck erfüllt: den Austausch zu fördern.
Es gibt eine neue Generation Kaffee-Enthusiasten, das ist gut. Wild, den Kopf voller Ideen, einige davon neu und interessant andere – naja – nicht. Was sich jedoch verstärkt zeigt ist, dass ein Austausch mit dieser Generation nicht mehr gut möglich ist, da oft nicht erwünscht. Die Opas (dazu gehöre ich) gehören irgendwie ins Feindbild, deren Erbe ist überholt, man muss Dinge anders und neu machen. In keinem Fall darf man irgendwie abstammen, aufbauen auf Vorhandenes. Man hat Dinge selbst von der Ursuppe bis zu dem gebracht, wo man heute steht.
The need to talk…
Coffee brewing has become a scientific process. Today we are able to measure the brewing process, we are talking ratios (extraction) and have overcome the “rules” of the past, of how coffee should be brewed. I am getting asked numerous questions per week. Based on the type of question one can see that our professional “common knowledge” has not yet become a public set of common knowledge. Even that the information is out there, acceessible easily, people are slowly incorporating them.
Ramblings
Unlike many people, which are following the manual brewing hype and dropping espresso in turn, I really like espresso. I like it for what it is. Espresso isn’t just a drink where aromas are packed more densely. The viscosity and the mouthfeel of the drink are some of the aspects making me love espresso that much. And no, it isn’t all about the viscosity. A good espresso lingers around for a long time, showcasing long lasting aromas, something you can’t get from a filter or otherwise manually prepared brew.
Nerd Activities?
Today we are able to prepare espresso better than ever before. In my previous post I was talking about pressure profiling, which has a huge impact on what you can extract from your coffee. While playing around with pressure profiling and extraction in general I was also playing around with specific roast profiles for my coffees lately. The results were remarkable. Instead of balancing out all taste attributes during roasting I could focus more on aroma development since I was able to create the overall balance during drink preparation. I will get back to this topic in a later post in more detail. While being amazed like a child several thoughts rushed into my mind to whom I dedicate this post.
Pressure Profiling
Since the first big hype about pressure profiling one and a half years ago I couldn’t find any noteworthy information about it anymore. Why is that? Is it because pressure profiling hasn’t turned out to be the next big thing? Did people stop sharing their findings? In the past we were playing around with pressure profiling for a while and made our first findings. Nevertheless, I never did a more systematic “research” to underpin the findings so far nor could I find anything like this in the internet.
Barista-Schulungen
Es gibt zwei Dinge, auf die ich bei Barista-Schulungen Wert lege. Die Entwicklung der sensorischen Fähigkeiten und das Verständnis des Extraktionsprozesses. Alle Schulungen die ich gebe, behandeln diese Themen umfassend. Der Umfang der von mir durchgeführten Schulungen beträgt in der Regel zwei Tage, mit der Möglichkeit, anschließend eine Zertifizierung gemäß SCAE Barista-Zertifizierung durchzuführen. Der Grund für den starken Fokus auf den genannten Themen ist, dass ich jedem Teilnehmer die Werkzeuge in die Hand legen möchte, mit denen er sich später alleine weiter entwickeln kann.
WBC 2011 Signature Drink
Since I am back from Bogota I have been too busy to write another blog entry. Since preparation for the next national competition is already ramping up it is about time to publish the final bits of information according to my national and WBC performances this year. Lets start with the signature drink.
Creating a signature drink can be a quite frustrating thing. Nevertheless, as more as you understand your coffee and aroma pairing in genral the better it gets. The signature drink that I created for this years German Barista Championship and the World Barista Championship had one major aspect in mind: simplicity. Showcasing the greatness of coffee without using many ingredients. The goal was to let the coffee speak for itself and to present a complex and diverse drink.
Defining Espresso Brewing Recipes
I was looking for a way to communicate my espresso brewing recipes to the consumer. In the past I was using simple information, consisting of the dose and the brewing temperature only. But the given information is of no use at all. Why? Some people are already confused by this “depth” of information, they just don’t know what to do with it. They don’t understand brewing as a process whose parameters can be controlled to produce a predictable result: “one day the coffee is good, the other it is not, this is how it is”.
WBC 2011 – The Movie
Tom, Tom, Björn and me captured our trip to Bogota on tape and took a load of pictures as well. We made a movie out of this that can be found on vimeo: WBC 2011 trip to Bogota
Enjoy!
Nestlé – WBC 2011 Sponsor
Many things are in my mind after the WBC 2011 in Bogota, which was truly a great event. Feedback from a competitors view is one such thing, which I will write about shortly. For now I would like to address one thing, that caused a lot of discussion during the WBC online as well as in Bogota itself: having Nespresso (Nestlé) as a sponsor for the event.
