Great Coffee in the Home Office

Hey everyone, how's it going?

Let's talk about coffee, something present in our work every day. I'll try to be quick and simple, although it's a subject I love and could talk about much more.

Before working, I didn't drink coffee. I learned to enjoy coffee at work. It was the moment to step away from the machine and clear my head by going to the kitchen to get a coffee.

I know I'm not the only one, but I can't work properly without coffee. I even feel like asking the candidate in the interview: "Do you drink coffee?" If the answer is "I don't really like coffee," the urge is to say: "You lost... Next!" Just kidding!

After I started working from home, I decided to invest a little more in my coffee and really fell in love with the thing.

We started with capsule coffees. We bought a bunch on sale and the machine came as a "gift." Over time, we saw that keeping capsules isn't cheap. For those who drink 1 or 2 cups a day, it's fine, but for those who drink several, it gets heavy. Here it was like this: I'd wake up, brew a carafe of coffee, and leave it on the home office desk with the cup beside it.

Doing the math, we realized it would be cheaper to brew our own coffee and, as a bonus, we could improve the quality. We bought a grinder and started with the V60 filter method. It was here that we realized we were going to start accumulating stuff if we kept switching methods. In the case of the grinder, we bought a good one, since it's necessary for practically all methods. We'll talk more about the grinder later.

For the V60 method, we bought a scale, a water kettle with temperature control, a V60 conical dripper, filters, and a carafe. We really liked this coffee, as it's very aromatic, but it's laborious to make every day, all the time. It's something for the weekend really.

We started thinking: if someone likes wine, they buy a wine cellar; if they like beer, they invest in a beer cooler; so, if we like coffee, let's invest in a good machine.

The question was whether we should buy a super automatic, one of those where you just press the button and put the cup underneath, or something more manual. The super automatic saves time, but doesn't allow changes and improvements in the process. We decided to wait for a sale and get a Breville Barista, which would require a learning curve to get to that top coffee. It was at this moment that we learned more about how to achieve the ideal coffee and understood that we made the right choice.

Nothing against super automatics; sometimes I feel like having one, but for me, having to prepare is part of my ritual.

Knowledge Acquired

We only use 100% Arabica coffee and buy it in beans.

To achieve a good coffee:

• Regardless of the method, water quality changes the coffee. Here we use a filter that requires a disposable candle. We change it every year, after cleaning the building's water tank. Not just for coffee, but for the quality of the water we drink.

• The coffee must be ground at the moment to preserve the aroma.

• The roast changes everything. We like fruitier coffees, with medium to light roast, which avoids bitterness and makes the coffee practically sweet. Generally, larger beans tend to be better.

• It's possible to find coffees scoring between 82 and 86 points at reasonable prices, affordable for daily use.

Grinder

Having a good coffee in hand, getting the grind right is the main point.

As we learned more about coffee, we began to understand that grinding at the moment is responsible for more than 50% of the coffee's quality. Obviously, everything depends on the quality of the bean. Grinding crap will result in ground crap.

In summary, the grinder can be:

• Blade (or propeller), which cuts the beans into pieces. They're more affordable, but don't guarantee consistency in the grind (granulometry).

• Burr grinder, with two discs (or cones) that grind the beans uniformly, adjustable for different grind sizes. They're more expensive, but ideal.

Without extending too much and already knowing that burr grinders are better, we have two paths: electric or manual.

If you're going to invest in better machines, some already come with the grinder built-in, including burr grinders.

We chose to buy a grinder separate from the machine. This allows us to:

• Change machines without depending on the grinder.
• Change grinders without changing the machine.
• When one has a problem, we don't lose everything at once. If the grinder has a problem, we buy ground coffee until it's fixed. If the machine has a problem, we change the method until it's fixed.

Since I didn't want to waste time grinding coffee manually, especially during work hours, I opted for an electric grinder from the start and I think it was the best choice. I didn't get to have experience with a manual grinder to give an opinion.

Espresso Machine

Our machine is already 7 years old. It's a Breville, the simplest model, Barista. The grinder is from the same brand.

Actually, it's kind of like a workstation with everything we need to make whatever we want. The coffee in the cup depends on who operates the machine.

If you have quality coffee, with the roast you like and ground at the right point, it still depends on some factors to reach your ideal coffee:

• Tamp the coffee with the correct force.

  • If you tamp too much, it will make water passage difficult, increasing pressure and extraction time, leaving the coffee more bitter (full-bodied).
  • If you tamp too little, the water will pass quickly and the coffee will be weak and watery.

• Pass the correct amount of water.

• If you tamped correctly, you need to find how much water you like to hit the point. There's no right or wrong, there's what you like.

• Extraction time is important. A short extraction can result in under-extraction, while a long extraction can bring bitter flavors.

• Water temperature matters. If the water is below 90°C, it won't be possible to extract all the flavor and aroma from the beans. If the water is too hot, above 97°C, it can alter the coffee's properties, making it bitter.

In summary, we have 6 variables to pay attention to. A change in any of them affects everything:

• Granulometry
• Quantity
• Water temperature
• Extraction time
• Tamping force
• Water quality

And in the end, if you do everything right and take too long to drink the coffee, it gets cold and you lose all the work.

It's just a little coffee, but it's complex!

After you get the hang of it, everything becomes easy. 1 minute is the time until you have the coffee ready. While the machine turns on and gets to the point (30 seconds), I grind the coffee and tamp, get the cup. Then, another 25 seconds to extract.

The electric grinder helps a lot to maintain consistency. If you know that grinding coffee for 10 seconds will give you the exact amount, you don't need to keep weighing it all the time, just the first time.

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Sometimes we see on the Internet a bunch of people wanting to dictate rules about what's right or wrong about preparing coffee and I even understand, but that's for a coffee shop that needs to follow standards. If you're the one preparing the coffee and you're the one who's going to drink it, do what you like, you're the one who's going to drink it.

There's a forum, coffee club, in case you want to delve deeper into the subject.

Do you want to sweeten it? Sweeten it.

But sweeten yours, not mine!