Too Darn Hot

As we have been tracking over the past couple of years, global warming has been impacting coffee growing regions around the world — from excessive rains leading to flooding to increased temperatures minimizing the available coffee-friendly agricultural regions.

The Guardian now has another update for us: The temperatures are warming enough that they are inviting a lovely little pest, the coffee berry borer, to live in higher and higher altitudes. This little beetle wants the same thing we do — coffee, delicious coffee! — but couldn’t hang with the coffee crops all that often because they preferred a cooler clime than the beetle’s 68F degrees. Warming kicked up temps in parts of Ethiopia’s mountainous growing region to this level in around 1984 and scientists have been tracking the borer’s population expansion ever since — it’s now present in every coffee growing region except Hawaii, Nepal and Papua New Guinea.

Coffee’s commodity price has been slowly increasing as a result of environmental and economic pressures and is at its highest this year. With an estimated $500m damage sourced to the coffee berry borer crew, it will only serve to increase the cost even more.

Lavazza Pre-Ground Coffee Cupping

We sell several variations of Lavazza’s pre-ground coffee and we often get asked what the difference is, flavor-wise. So we asked Gail to put it to the cupping test to see how they compare.

Watch as she cups Lavazza In Blu, Qualita Oro, Qualita Rossa, Bar and Crema e Gusto.

Look to the Stars

It’s that time again — you know, when the secrets of the universe are revealed and their influences on your java become clear. August’s Espresscopes are up over at Brown Bean , so check them out!

Libras have romance and love on their cosmic horizons — accented, of course, by sharing their equally passionate ardor for coffee — while Cancers need to slow down a bit and maybe take some time to enjoy a slow cold brewed coffee over ice.

What’s in store for your sign this month? Check out these caffeine-imbued predictions.

Hourglass Aging Taste Test

We’ll never know how Marilyn Monroe’s figure would have held up over time, but that’s not the kind of Hourglass we’re talking about here, baby! We’re talking about the cold coffee brewing system that creates a smooth concentrate that you can use to make hot or cold coffee for up to two weeks afterward.

Or so they say! But can you, really? These are the big questions that only the crew at Seattle Coffee Gear are prepared to take on. We had Gail brew up a batch of the Hourglass coffee; she then tested it the next day for a baseline flavor assessment and then we followed it up 1 week and 2 weeks later to see how the flavor stood up.

Watch Gail as she takes one for science!

How to Make a Mocha

Mmmmmmmocha. When coffee and cocoa beans hook up and get real with each other, they create one of the most enduring and appreciated flavor combos around. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t dig the espresso-infused chocolatey goodness of a well-crafted mocha — and while it may be a little on the sweeter side than some of us can handle in the morning (Read: Gail), it’s a nice mid-afternoon pick-me-up or a great option for an after dinner dessert.

There are many different ways in which you could whip up this drink, and we asked Gail to demonstrate two variations. First, she pulled the shots into the chocolate, mixed them together and then added steamed milk on top. Second, she made chocolate milk, steamed that up and then combined it with a separately pulled espresso shot. Watch her make choco-magic on the Rocket Giotto Evoluzione!

Video Crew Review: New Capresso CoffeeTEAM TS

Capresso re-worked their grind-n-brew drip coffee maker, the CoffeeTEAM, in 2010 with a few improvements: An easier to navigate programming interface, increased bean hopper capacity/grinding time and the ability to use the grind and brew functionality OR simply brew directly with your favorite pre-ground coffee.

Watch as Gail takes us through the paces — including the machine’s specs, functionality, coffee temperature — and brews up a pot of coffee. We demonstrate the TS version with the thermal carafe, but there is also a GS version with a glass carafe/hot plate function.

Technivorm & Temperature

You may recall a post we wrote last year that measured the temperature in a Technivorm thermal carafe, testing it at brew and then tracking it hour by hour to see how the temperature held up over time. In general, we have had a small percentage of customers report that their new Technivorm coffee makers don’t brew hot enough; after testing some returned models, speaking with the manufacturer and testing known working models, we determined that, ultimately, this was largely a question of personal preference.

Some people love their coffee to be really, really hot — and that’s cool! But the Technivorm is designed with a different end goal in mind. Watch as Gail talks to us about what you can expect from this drip coffee maker.

New! Cirqua AB Formula Water Treatment Capsules

The SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) recommends 1.15% – 1.35% coffee solids for an ideally flavored cup of coffee. That leaves ~98% of the flavor up to the water itself — something not a lot of people talk about. Some folks want to reduce the descaling maintenance required by using distilled water or water that is put through a reverse osmosis system that has no mineral content in it, meaning it won’t contribute to scale build up on the equipment.

But thorough testing by scientists much more focused on this than us has revealed that the ideal mineral content for coffee is 150 parts per million (ppm) of total dissolved solids (tds). More than that and you run the risk of under-extracting the coffee (basically, there’s not enough allowable space in the water for the coffee particles to be absorbed) and less than that means you can likely over-extract (there’s too much space and it takes on too many coffee particles).

Commercial coffee operations invest in high end water treatment systems that will ensure they’re using the best possible water/mineral balance to easily make excellent coffee. This is of particular concern to large chains that have cafes in different cities as they can’t rely on the local water’s tap to be the same across the board. Companies such as Cirqua came along to address this issue for cafes, but they understood that most folks that wanted to make coffee at home just weren’t going to invest in a high end filtration system.

So they developed this easy-to-use solution that you can employ at home: Add the two capsules (per dosage) to one gallon of distilled water and you have the perfectly balanced mineral water to make an awesome cup of coffee. We tested it out at the store, check out our results:

The Jubilant Return of Espresscopes

You have been patiently waiting, missing, pining for and wondering where on earth they could be. Really, how could you be expected to make a better cup of coffee at home without the insight of your friendly javastrologer? It’s not natural.

After a two-month hiatus, the Espresscopes over at Brown Bean are back in action! Aquarians corner the market in easy perfection this month, while Leos should probably chill down a bit and just simply enjoy their lovely cup. Check them out to learn more caffeine-imbued cosmic predictions.

Buy a Soldier a Cup o’ Joe

Today’s Memorial Day in the US and while many of us are enjoying an extra day out of the office or getting our summer parties kicked off at a nice pitch, it’s easy to forget that we have a couple of wars going on right now — which means a lot of soldiers away from home.

So take a moment to send them a little bit of home by donating a bag of coffee to them via Bad Ass Coffee Company’s Buy a Cup o’ Joe for a Soldier program. You can send them a bag and include your contact info as well if you’d like them to know who you are. Whether or not you agree with the merits of said wars, these soldiers work a pretty tough job and deserve your support, period.