Over the last few years, the prevalence and indeed the popularity of filter coffee in cafes and amongst consumers has seen a sharp increase. The specialty coffee movement is largely to thank for this, as they are the ones who have placed emphasis back on the raw ingredients. The farmer, and terrior of origin is now taking center stage – gone are the days of longing for “Brand X” and not having a clue where the coffee comes from, what varietal of coffee it is and how it is processed.

This has been a boon for coffee lovers, now able to taste all the unique properties that each coffee has to offer and enjoy each one individually on its own merits.

The idea of drinking black filter coffee may seem somewhat daunting to the uninitiated milk-based coffee drinker, but filter coffee is actually simpler to order than espresso (although just as challenging for the barista to brew).  When brewed well, filter coffee is naturally sweet, full of flavour and just delicious! More and more coffee enthusiasts are enjoying filter brew methods on a regular basis. You will generally only find single origin filter coffee, since the idea behind filter brew methods is to not only end up with a delicious drink but to highlight and discern all of the unique flavour attributes of a particular origin.

Roasting coffee for filter

Specialty cafes not only select specific coffees for this brew method, but since filter coffee is a gentler brew method than espresso, they also tend to roast a little lighter. This helps retain all the sweet and subtle flavours of the coffee. Here at Ministry Grounds, our coffee is roasted to be suitable for both espresso and filter brew methods.

Here’s a brief guide to the types of filter coffee you may come across:

Pour over filter coffee

Pour over is one of the more common filter brew methods available. There are various brands of pour over devices which employ paper filtration, such as Hario v60 or Chemex. Regardless of the particular brand of pour over used, they are all based around the same concept. That is, pouring water at a specific temperature over a specific weight of precisely ground coffee, to end up with a filter brew that weighs a certain amount.

These variables are changed by the barista, usually according to taste, although sometimes an electronic device can be employed to measure the total dissolved solids (TDS) in the brew, which can help with ‘dialing in’ a filter coffee.

If you order a pour over coffee, there is no need to specify anything other than which coffee origin you want – simple!

Syphon filter coffee

Syphons have a long history, so chances are your parents or even grandparents may have used one back in the day! Recently though, syphons have become popular again. These days, halogen heaters are used to heat the syphon, which is not only practical but looks great in action, shining light through the bubbling brew water like some sort of science experiment. Precisely ground and weighed filter coffee is placed into the top vessel. When the brew water in the lower vessel reaches boil, it syphons up to the top where the ground coffee awaits. The coffee and water mixture is then eventually cooled to the point where it passes back down through a filter into the lower vessel, ready to serve.

There is quite an art and science to timing a syphon brew, getting the right temperatures and allowing the heated water to mix with the coffee in the top vessel for just the right amount of time. Stirring may be used with a bamboo stir paddle to avoid over or under extraction of the ground coffee.

Just as with pour over coffee, when ordering a syphon you need only specify the coffee origin (if a choice is offered), and leave the rest in the hands of your barista.

Aeropress filter coffee

With a name like Aeropress, you may be wondering what the heck an aero-anything has to do with coffee! Invented by the sports toy manufacturing company Aerobie, the Aeropress has taken the world by storm and is now seen in many specialty coffee shops alongside other filter brew devices. Based around the plunger concept, but with a disposable filter (or reusable metal disc), the Aeropress is both easy to use and hard to master. There are even Aeropress championships!

Cold drip filter coffee

On a hot day, cold drip can be quite a refreshing alternative! Since cold water is used, it takes many hours to brew a single batch. Generally, the larger the cold drip, the longer it takes to brew. Some cold drips are huge!

The cold water drips slowly down through the ground coffee into a vessel below, resulting  in a crisp, clean brew of filter coffee quite different to that of any other brew method. Each batch is refridgerated and served cold, sometimes with milk on the side, although cold drip is like other filter brew methods – best enjoyed without milk.

You can also try these filter brew methods at home! You’ll need a set of scales, freshly roasted coffee and of course a grinder. Hand grinders are perfect for a filter coffee on the go, or if you don’t have an electric grinder.

Good luck, and we are here to help if you have any questions about filter coffee!

Visit our coffee equipment store

Someone once said that “Your choice of grinder is at least at as important as your choice of espresso machine”. Wise person.
The simple fact is that you cannot make good espresso without a quality burr grinder. Indeed, I would argue you cannot make ANY kind of good coffee without a decent burr grinder!

So why the big deal about a device that just turns whole coffee beans into really small bits of coffee bean? It’s a big deal because key issues to good coffee (assuming good quality, fresh roasted beans) is freshness and correct level of fineness/coarseness of the ground coffee.
For the purpose of this discussion,  we are talking about burr grinders (flat or conical). The blade type of spice grinders are NOT suitable for coffee. Ever!

Freshness

Roasted coffee is quite a volatile substance. To keep it simple, it stales really quickly. Whole beans, properly packed and stored will last 3+ weeks post-roast before losing much of their special qualities. Ground coffee – even if properly packed and stored – loses much of that freshness in a matter of hours – or even minutes if not packed well. That doesn’t mean the coffee goes bad, but rather that many of the special, but often fleeting flavours and tastes that characterise a really great coffee are gone. It may still taste ‘ok’, but it won’t be ‘great’.
So a grinder is vital to be able to grind on demand and maximise the flavour locked in those beans!

Grind fineness

The other big reason to have a decent coffee grinder on hand is that each brewing method requires its own level of grind fineness. That is especially true of espresso, where the particle size should be as uniform as possible, and quite fine. At the other end of the scale, plunger coffee requires a coarse grind. Too fine, and the brew is bitter, and the plunger hard to push down. All tied up with extraction rates and the like – a topic for another blog post!
Another factor here is how fresh coffee changes as it ages. Particularly for espresso, small adjustments should be made to keep the shot on target as the days pass, and even with changes in the humidity.

So, what grinder?

The good news is, getting a decent grinder is not as expensive as it used to be.
If you are not sure of your commitment to the world of coffee yet, you can start with a quality hand grinder, such those made by Kyocera, Hario and Porlex  These do a great job for less than $80. They do take time and effort (especially for espresso grinding), but if your daily needs are modest, these are terrific, and they are easy to take with you to the office or on holiday.

 

But if hand grinding is not your thing, electric grinders are the go, and the sky is limit on what you can spend on a whizz-bang grinder! Fortunately, there are a couple of electric models well within reach of home users.
The pick of the crop at the moment is the Breville Smartgrinder  BCG800. This is well designed grinder built on a base used by several other entry-level grinders. But the difference here is that the Breville uses some clever technology to automatically adjust the dose whenever you change the grind. Choose between ‘cups’ for French press (plunger) or Filter, and ‘shots’ for Espresso to get the right dose for your needs. Once you have worked out your personal tastes, it needs little adjusting. It’s not perfect, but it is a genuine bargain for entry level users, or as a second grinder for the seriously committed.

An alternative, but not so versatile are the Sunbeam range of home grinders based around the EM0480. Around the same price as the Breville, but without the electronic goodies.

Moving up from that, there are grinder like the venerable Rancillio Rocky in the $400 range – an adequate grinder, but relatively poor value these days.
Next step up introduces grinder like the Mahlkönig Vario. This is the domestic baby in the range of impressive commercial grinder made by Mahlkönig. Using ceramic burrs and a unique grind adjustment system that allows rapid and accurate grinder changes, this machine has a tiny footprint and excellent grind consistency.  One of these is currently residing in the Ministry Grounds kitchen, and is in daily use for a range of grind types.
If a conventional grinder with a doser is more your thing, then this price range gets you close to the legendary Mazzer Mini.

Which bring us to one last question:

Doser or doserless grinder?

This is becoming less of an issue for home users as fewer domestic grinders come with a doser. The doser is that container mounted on the grinder that holds a substantial quantity of ground coffee. Designed for espresso use in cafes, a lever ‘doses’ shots of ground coffee into the portafilter – that familiar ‘clack-clack’ sound you hear as the barista does their job.
They are designed to hold ground coffee for brief periods so the barista isn’t held up by grinder speed. Dosers really don’t have much of a place in the home and most home coffee enthusiasts are far better off grinding directly into the portafilter or a container for filter brewing.

So don’t hold back! For the best taste from your freshly roasted coffee, grab a good grinder and get into the daily grind!

Check out our range of electric and hand grinders and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to give us a shout.

that’s made from the coffee cherry, but isn’t coffee?

Answer: Cascara!

Some call Cascara ‘coffee tea’ but that’s not strictly correct. Perhaps a coffee infusion is more accurate, but even that is confusing because the drink tastes very little like coffee.
So what is Cascara?
It’s a tea-like infusion brewed from the dried pulp of the coffee cherry.
Cascara, meaning ‘skin’ or ‘peel’ in Spanish, is a novel way of recycling left over coffee pulp, which is produced in huge quantities when ripe coffee cherries are pulped before the beans are washed and dried. In most producing countries this pulp is traditionally seen as worthless and is usually broken down and used as fertilizer – but it is also possible to dry this left over cherry to create the base for a unique and refreshing tea.

Although few have heard of it, cascara has a very long and interesting history. Coffee farmers in Yemen and Ethiopia have in fact been drying and brewing cherry like this for centuries – possibly since before coffee seeds were first used to make a drink. In these countries the dried cherry is often steeped along with spices such as ginger, nutmeg or cinnamon to make a fragrant drink known as Hashara in Ethiopia or Qishr in Yemen.

We had the chance to sample a very fine, clean Cascara recently bought in by Melbourne Coffee Merchants. While the brew strength and method were something of an experiment(!), the aroma and taste were very, very nice. Aroma was rich with candied apple and brown sugar, along with lighter citrus. Drinking it, it was much lighter and more delicate than the aroma suggested, still sweet and fruity, with floral and definite tea-like notes. Clean and refreshing.
It would be easy to think of a number of ways of brewing and serving this as a lovely summer drink.
And the really nice part was that this Cascara was from the same Bolivian group of farms that our delicious Estrallas coffees come from. It feels like we are completing some kind of circle…

Here’s the details (courtesy of MCM):

Buena Vista

Country: BOLIVIA
Region: Caranavi Province
City: Caranavi
Altitude: 1,500 – 1,800 metres above sea level
Variety: Various
Processing: Coffee cherry dried on raised screens
Owner: Various small producers
In the cup: Tart acidity with gentle mouthfeel and notes of apple and elderflower.

This particular cascara is the dried cherry from various high grown organic coffees processed at the Buena Vista mill in Caranavi, in the heart of one of Bolivia’s prime coffee-producing areas. All of these coffees are grown at over 1,500 metres by small producers in the Caranavi region – a lush, fertile area of steep valleys and mountains that provides habitat for a diverse range of flora and fauna.

Caranavi’s small, traditional family farms average around 5 hectares each, and are often planted out with citrus trees as well as coffee. Most farms use no chemical fertilizers or pesticides and this cascara was produced using cherry from fully organic certified producers.

The result is a rare and delicious tea, which reveals yet another taste dimension to the coffee cherry. We enjoyed this lot’s tart acidity, gentle mouthfeel, and apple and elderflower notes – an excellent palate cleanser!

Brewing methods
Cascara is still a relatively new ingredient in most countries and so ripe for experimentation (excuse the pun!). We have tried brewing it various ways and we like using a French Press the best (recipe below), but you could also try using a tea pot, or any number of other methods. We’ll be trying a number of methods and strengths to see what works best, but here’s a starting point:

Use 15g of cascara per 250ml of water
Brew for 4 minutes in a French press
Stir 3 times
Wait an additional 3 minutes
Serve immediately

The really good news is that we will have stock in the Ministry Grounds store in February.