God in A Cup of Coffee

I am just wrapping up a ten-day hometown media blitz for God in a Cup, and I am afraid my mind has not been on blogging. But I have to chime in on this insane controversy about 5-shot espressos and 20 ounce coffees.

Here in the polyglot, born-yesterday, no-sense-of-history US we don’t have a centuries old food culture that tells us the right way to do things. This, of course, has an upside: part of our entrepreneurial spirit has to do with the fact that we are always inventing the world anew. The downside is that we have no sense that there is a right way to do things. And some of the more primitive among us get really really angry when someone tells them that guzzling great vats of coffee in a single sitting might not be the best way to go.

I see the emergence of what we could call our “foodie culture” in the last dozen years as an effort, in a sense, to discover the right way to eat, the right way to grow and cook and celebrate food, and also the right way to drink wine.

Now the specialty industry is introducing ideas about the right way to drink coffee. And the blowback has been impressive.

But change comes hard.

Fact is, no self respecting restaurant –including that salt of the earth neighborhood pizza joint–is going to serve you 20 ounces of chianti when you order a glass. People get it when it comes to wine, that there is a certain way things are done. They know it without consciously knowing it that the size of the wine glass represents a decision that is gastronomic, economic and aesthetic.

Portion size in specialty coffee also represents decisions that are gastronomic, economic and aesthetic. Those who sell and serve the highest quality beans would like their customers to savor the contents of their cup, to drink less, taste more and realize that coffee and the coffee experience have value. This to me seems eminently sensible. And temper tantrums notwithstanding, I fully believe the time has come for these ideas to begin to take root.

Of course, those who see coffee as a nothing more than a vehicle for infusing caffeine into the bloodstream, jump up and down like trolls in a fairy tale, shouting WE NEED OUR SUPERSIZE FIX when told to limit their intake. I agree that one of the charms of coffee is the caffeine. Sure it’s a drug–in my opinion, it’s a wonderful drug. But here’s the joke, recent research indicates that when it comes to the attention-focusing impact of caffeine, less is more! It appears that those who guzzle nightmarish portions of coffee do not gain a proportional uptake in attention and alertness. The research explaining all this is laid very lucidly by a reporter named Mark Adams in a recent article in New York Magazine:

http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/breakfast/47395/

So that lovely little jolt in that single shot of espresso may be a much more reliable pick-me-up than the hammer-on-head 5-shot cup of excess. Humorous, eh?

There has been a schedule switch, and I am going to be on the Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU Radio, 88.5 on Wednesday, July 30th at 1pm, rather than on Thursday.

For those of you who have asked and those of you who might like to know, I will be promoting God in a Cup in my hometown, Washington, DC. You can read me and see me and meet me:

In the Washington Post:
Wednesday, July 23, lead story in the Food Section
You can read what I have to say about finding great coffee in the
Washington, DC area.

I will be signing books and talking at a coffee tasting
Thursday, July 24, 6:30PM
Grape & Bean,
118 S. South Royal Street in Old Town Alexandria 24th
(www.grapeandbean.com)

on Monday, July 28th there will be an article about me and about Washington, DC’s coffee scene in the Express, the Washington Post’s tabloid geared to Metro-riders

July 28th, at Politics & Prose, Washington’s beloved independent book store, I will be signing books and reading at a coffee tasting. 7PM
Politics and Prose
5015 Connecticut Avenue NW
www.politics-prose.com

On Radio
Thursday, July 31, noon
You can hear me on WAMU — 88.5FM
On the Kojo Nande Show

If you want to attend one of these events and would like to come up and say hello and you don’t know what I look like, here’s a noncoffeeish picture of my husband John and me that shows what I look like (on a good day.)

When I interviewed US barista champion Kyle Glanville two years ago, he talked about the impact of Andrea Illy’s book, Espresso Coffee: The Science of Quality, on his professional development. Ernesto Illy, Andrea’s father, is revered for infusing scientific precision into the art of espresso making, and the company has long been associated with the highest standards.

During that interview, Kyle noted that Italy’s dominance in the art of espresso had faded. “Italian fetishism,” he said with characteristic panache, “is no longer relevant.” Meaning that when it comes to the art of espresso making, Italians no longer dominate the field.

Indeed.

These days Illy and another Italian roaster, Lavazza, appear to be making major inroads in the American market. A number of restaurants I have patronized recently have listed espresso from one or the other of these companies on their menus. Stylishly designed cans of Illy and Lavazza are available in many high end food stores.

I have been told by a coffee guy whose opinion I respect, that Illy, when fresh, makes a fine espresso. I cannot speak to that. Suffice it to say, that my experiences with Illy coffee have not been positive. Hard to delineate how much of the problem is execution and how much relates to the innate qualities and lack of freshness of the coffee.

Earlier this week, however, I encountered an Italian import that redefined abysmal.

My husband and I were back in Florida checking in on my Mom. On Tuesday night we had a late late lunch at Charlie’s Crab, a family favorite located on the Intercoastal canal where you can take in the view while enjoying a pretty good meal.

Charlie’s is part of the Chart House chain and on this visit, its corporate roots were more visible than in the past. The portions were big. The sauces were gloppy. A crab, mango and avocado “stack” I used to love, was weighted down with copious amounts of tasteless mayonnaise.

The waiter was friendly, but unmindful.

And the coffee?

The first little cups placed before us were tepid–maybe 110 degrees F. I had a hard time believing this coffee had been heated and forced under pressure through an espresso machine.

We told the waiter the coffee was cold.

He didn’t remove the first cups when he set the second set of espressos before us–I told you he was unmindful.

The liquid was thin and it tasted like Sanka.

The waiter looked at me.

Where does this coffee come from, I asked.

Lavazza, said the waiter, a tall thin guy from Brazil who had come to Fort Lauderdale for the swimming.

Pods? I asked.

Pods, he said.

Oh, I said.

Omigod, I say. Lavazza has defined the bottom of specialty. Alleged specialty. I doubt McDonalds could do worse.

What I love most about the specialty coffee world is its inventiveness. Many people in the business have an in born need to throw themselves, heart, soul and innards into what they do. “Coffee guys” ( this term encompasses women, too) like the ones I write about are driven to keep learning, to experiment, to question the common wisdom, to push specialty in new directions. There’s a relentlessness to their commitment, a monomania, that attracts a writer the way an ice cream truck attracts kids on a playground.

What’s often missing in the specialty world is EQ–emotional intelligence. That all important form of intelligence that helps a person understand other people, understand his or her own impact on others, understand the complexities of human relationships, understand the importance of context in all human interactions and correct course based on these perceptions.

Lots of guys have emotional intelligence, but I think it is fair (meaning not sexist) to say that more women possess this important quality. Which may explain why I have occasionally felt so lonely when hanging out with an all male group of coffee guys in some remote corner of the world. And why meeting a perceptive, insightful “coffee guy” of the female persuasion is so much fun.

Enter Erin Meister, age 26, barista, barista trainer, blogger and professional coffee

tutor.

Erin is a woman with emotional intelligence, as well as the other kinds.

Our paths had crossed a few times, but she and I had never t really talked until I invited her to the party some old friends threw for me in New York City when God in a Cup was published last month.

That’s when Erin told me that she had developed a sideline as a “coffee tutor” or teacher, helping clients in New York City learn to how to best use their home espresso machines.

“You mean you’re a coffee consultant?” I asked somewhat incredulously, not quite getting it. (OK, I was a little buzzed.)

“I shy away from the word consultant,” Erin said. “I lam a tutor. Like someone who comes into your house to teach you math, only I do that with espresso machines and coffee.”

I found this new niche for specialty coffee expertise really interesting and made a date to talk with her on the phone.

Erin’s gig as a coffee tutor grew out of her work as a barista. Being an interactional sort, she got to know her customers well, talking at length with them about coffee and espresso making. Often a customer would express frustration at his inability–generally it’s guys with some techie skills who buy home espresso machines–to master the complexities of espresso making.

One thing led to another and pretty soon Erin and a fellow barista with whom she went into partnership were building a coffee tutoring website (www.biynyc.com), writing a manual for home espresso makers, and scheduling home visits.

Most of her clients, Erin reports, are men in their 30s to mid 40s who own their own apartments. “They tend to have moderate to high moderate espresso machines and have done a lot of research.” Their book-learning, however, hasn’t provided them with a sense of the physical skills required to operate an espresso machine well. “They haven’t gotten the tamp down,” Erin says., “They have to work on the fluidity of the movement. It’s like trying to learn about choreography from a book. You can’t do it. So I come over and help them put the moves together.”

Erin finds comments of the “only in New York” variety about her tutoring business annoying and short-sighted. “I haven’t found my clients to be rich or entitled. If these guys really had a lot of money, they would be paying someone else to make their coffee.”

Her clients, she says, are specialty coffee’s core customers: “They’re foodies. They’re really interested in wine. They read about coffee, are willing to invest in high quality equipment, are willing to try different beans and have a real love of coffee.”

Erin teaches them skills like “temperature surfing… Home espresso machines,” she explains, “don’t have much temperature stability—the boiler is small and the heat source unstable. The milk and espresso share the same boiler, so sometimes you have to trick the machine a little to get the temperatures you need.”

She teaches her clients, “techniques for fooling the machine. When someone is starting out, they don’t think in these terms.” Under ordinary circumstances, she explains, you want the water to be heated to 205 degrees F or less, while milk is steamed at a higher temperature. “You don’t want to mix the grounds with steam-heated water, because the steam will scorch the espresso, so you have to purge the steam from boiler,” she says.

Mastering an espresso machine, she adds, “is like learning another language. I think for me, these skills are instinctual, so I have had to learn how to teach…”

She has also learned to appreciate the dynamic that goes on between her clients and their wives and girlfriends who often sit in on the tutoring sessions. Sometimes, when the student asks a question or makes a comment, his spouse or spouse equivalent will say, “Honey, that’s not what she (meaning Erin) said to do.”

“What you get is a little bit of backseat barista-ing,” says Erin. “It’s a very funny, sweet dynamic. You get to see a little bit of the human relationship.” (if you have the emotional intelligence to notice.)

These days, in addition to tutoring, and writing, Erin is working as a copy editor at Time Out New York. I asked her if she missed being a barista. “I miss the customers,” she says. “I miss talking to people about coffee all day.” In my opinion as, admittedly, an outsider, the specialty industry needs people with her kinds of coffee skills and people skills.

You can reach Erin at: http://meetthepresspot.blogspot.com

-endit.