Vivre la difference!

As global corporates do, somehow Nespresso managed to get an Independent Newspaper reporter to do a 3 page spread for free. Because I don't have the budget to compete against that kind of power and in case the Independent Newspaper don't publish my response, here are my views on the editorial:

4/10/07

The Editor

The Independent Newspaper

Re: Article “The cult of Nespresso”

Dear Sir,

As a roaster of speciality coffee I read with despair the item on Nespresso and how two of the top restaurants in the UK proudly use the product.

Comments such as “consistency” and not having “half an hours worth of washing up” only go to highlight why the ubiquitous tea bag and M & S ready meals have come to be such a success in a generation of time starved automatons.

Do the chefs of Sketch and the Fat Duck pop down to their local supermarket for ready made Shepherd’s pie when they put it on their menu, in the knowledge that it will be “consistently good”? I doubt it, so why then should Coffee not be given the same level of respect?

Coffee is an organic product, and like meat, broccoli or potatoes varies from batch to batch and season to season, the challenge is to consistently put great coffee in the cup, but then isn’t that true of most foods, and why we recognise great chefs?

In a world of de-skilling and dumbing down none is better than global organisations such as Nestle. Why should I as a business go through all that costly training with real human beings when Nestle offer the panacea of the capsule. Just think how a businesses bottom line is improved, simply pressing a button allows you to carry on paying the minimum wage to the next person off the boat.

To hell with the cost in terms of packaging waste and the double standards of people who on the one hand re-cycle their newspapers, but on the other make every coffee they drink using a Nestle capsule.

I’ve spent the last 18 years of my life roasting coffee for a living, and it is a huge challenge, but it has been and is a wonderful, sometimes frustrating, but mostly exhilarating journey. I’ve met people from all around the world – People who are passionate about what they do, despite being paid very little, mostly because the largest roasters in the world are able to play one country off against another.

I can count growers as my friends; I want to continually do the best I can for them and all their hard work. I can’t morally beat them down when I know what goes into delivering great coffee, and nor should our society.

Great coffee, like great wine and great food can take a lifetime to perfect, please don’t let it be reduced to the equivalent of a happy pill. Where are the Gordon Ramsey’s or Delia Smith’s of the coffee world who will stand up and defend the good name of coffee as roasted by thousands of micro roasters around the globe? It’s time to stand up and be counted, otherwise everything written in the seminal booklet “Mugged” , Poverty in your coffee cup by Oxfam will come true.

Inspiration for small businesses

As anyone who runs their own business knows, it can be a lonely place sometimes. You do what you think is right and what you believe in, however things don't always go to plan and as a result it can leave you deflated and wondering why you make the necessary sacrifices.

Well a customer of mine called today asking why we didn't do a particular product line under our own brand, he believed that our reputation is such that people would fall over themselves to use it if we put our name to the product.

I told him that we continually look for these kinds of opportunities, but that the volumes involved sometimes meant that we couldn't justify the cost. He was pleased to hear this and appreciated my dilemma. He then came out with this wonderful quote which really reassures you that what you are striving to achieve isn't being done in vane and is appreciated:

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"

Apparently it is attributed to the English philosopher Edmund Burke

I know it sounds dramatic, and not all our competitors are evil, but at least it reflects that other people appreciate our values and that we are not ploughing a lone furrow.


I hope that inspires those of you who run your own businesses

Passing of Marcel Marceau (Mangel) aged 84

This has absolutely nothing to do with coffee, tea, Jersey, simply humanity.

The quote comes from a wreath placed at the graveside of Marcel Marceau who was buried at Pere Lachaise (apologies for the lack of an accent) cemetery alongside such names as Edith Piaf, Chopin, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison.

"The cry of silence will be eternal."

Rest in peace Marcel, isn't it incredible how one man's silence had the ability to bring so much joy to the world.

A classic milk moment

I go on and on about milk handling and it's importance to the quality of your cappuccino however I've never ever been quite as eloquent as Hanna Neuschwander in her interesting article published in the latest Barista Magazine

The article entitled "The House that Foam Built" goes into immense details, but at its core has the simplest message "You can have the most expensive, drug-free, cow-happy milk in the universe - hell, you could milk the cow yourself - and it will still suck if you steam it wrong"

Here here

Stale coffee, blunt blades, leaking group head seals - An everyday story of a low volume coffee site

As a coffee roaster who wants every customer to enjoy great coffee it can sometimes be a frustrating business, particularly when dealing with smaller cafes.

An experience I encountered the other day makes you appreciate that it's not easy to serve great coffee when it's just one of a long list of items from staffing issues to the next rent payment that you need to worry about.

If you are reading this blog and the above sounds familiar, then can I suggest that you pay real attention to the following critical areas in your coffee making day.

1. Review how much coffee you are actually selling, if your usage is below 1 kilo (about 140 cups) a week you should be considering using individually packed pods. The coffee beans being an organic product stale quickly once open to the air, whereas pods are designed to only be opened when they are needed. They seem expensive against the price of beans, but will deliver a consistent cups of coffee whilst you try to build up those sales.

2. If you can justify using beans, then don't overfill the coffee grinder hopper. At most a 1/3rd full will suffice. Better to top up from the bag often, than to have the coffee beans getting stale in the hopper. Just to add that once a bag of beans has been opened, ensure you squeeze as much air out as possible, and then store in a cool place.

3. Don't grind too much coffee, again less and often are two words that if followed will deliver a better tasting cup of coffee. I would suggest throwing any ground coffee left over away, but you'd probably say that that was a roaster speaking!

4. Coffee grinder blades - Their condition is vital to the quality of grind you get. Worn blades will not deliver great coffee. As a rule of thumb, every time you have your espresso machine opened up for insurance purposes, it's a good idea to get the grinder blades changed at the same time. It's not that expensive, and will benefit coffee sales.

5. Before making any coffee, ensure that the machine is at the correct operating temperature. Machines left standing doing nothing will not deliver great coffee if used immediately after a quiet period. Ensure a couple of cup-fulls of water are sent through the group heads prior to making a coffee.

6. Cleanliness - Do a "chemical" clean of the group heads of your machine at least once a week. A water flush at the end of the day is vital to stop the heads clogging up, but a chemical clean will break down any stale oils left hanging around. Also don't forget to clean the group handles and baskets at the same time. Baskets may look clean from the top, but take them out and you will be surprised how black the underside can become. It will all go in the cup of coffee otherwise.


7. Steam wand cleaning - Ensure that milk isn't left hanging on the steam wand, it will clog up the holes and can cause a major hygiene problem, it doesn't look great either to a potential customer and to my mind makes a statement about the place before a coffee is even made.

There I hope that helps those of you who don't sell that much coffee for whatever reason. As a roaster whether you are large or small, we only want you to sell great coffee.

Guatemalan coffee from the Nueva Granada estate

I was introduced to Holly Nottebohm at the Speciality Coffee Association of America coffee conference held in Los Angeles earlier this year where her farm won an award for their coffee quality from the Rainforest Alliance.

Her enthusiasm for her farm shone like a beacon of light; She also tells me that one of her pet hobbies when she's away is to collect books to take back to her local school. A real human face that for me is what has been missing for so many years when coffee was treated as so much commodity.

So it's with great pleasure that I announce the introduction to our range, of her farm's coffee. The particular line is "Monteflora", the estate Nueva Granada. We have been careful not to roast the coffee too dark to ensure that those caramel notes that one of the judges highlighted shine through. It's great in filter machines and French presses with a fresh pastry. I'm feeling hungry and thirsty already!

The total madness that is the Island’s waste management system

My comments stem from what I foolishly thought was a clever idea as to how we might recycle our cardboard waste.

A recent employee of mine who came from Sweden was appalled at the fact that we simply threw in the bin all our cardboard waste, something that simply doesn’t happen in Sweden. So I made contact with John Rive the recycling guru on the Island who gave the thumbs up to the idea that we take our cardboard waste to the Central Market waste area for recycling.

So far so good; however on the last occasion that we walked our cardboard waste around to the Central Market we were told that this was the last time they would accept it. I guess it was all too simple.

Apparently a letter will be making its way round to us from a gentleman by the name of Paul Griffin of Property Holdings; they’ve got nothing to do with waste management, but look after the Central market. Apparently the problem was that the scheme was so successful that their people didn’t have enough hours left in the day to do their other market work. They also aren’t prepared to hire more staff to do work that I guess rightly so isn’t their problem, but of course ultimately it is their problem, because the Island’s waste management is a problem for the whole of our society.

So now who do we turn to? Well apparently that’s a very good question; Transport and Technical Services are in charge of the central handling of waste on this Island, that means they run Bellozane, but don’t tell anyone, they also collect waste from some bins around the Royal Square I’m reliably informed. The rest of the waste in the Parish of St. Helier is collected by the Parish. By the time you add up all the parishes together there are an unbelievable 13 different collecting agencies on an Island 9 miles x 5 miles!

What solutions are their on the table? Well for our cardboard waste the answer is none, because TTS and the Parish of St. Helier are fighting it out between them as to who will bear the cost, in the mean time we have no choice but to dump all our cardboard waste, which is criminal.

The Constable of St. Helier is trying to fight the fly tippers by removing Eurobins left, right and centre, which means that instead of full Eurobins we’re seeing epidemic proportions of black bin bags being left on our streets for the seagulls to rip apart, which in turn has to be cleared up by the Parish.

The whole waste management system is from where I’m sitting is in complete chaos, with each public sector empire either passing the buck or blaming the other for the current malaise.

The public are crying out for cost savings in the public sector yet here is as clear a restructuring opportunity as you can get, which no doubt has the potential to save the tax payer hundreds of thousands of pounds but I’m sure it can’t be as simple as that!

The last fossil fueled delivery van?

Today I reluctantly signed the dotted line for the purchase of a Volkswagen Transporter T30 delivery van. I say reluctantly because I had hoped that our next vehicle would be electric powered thereby reducing not only our costs significantly, but also our carbon footprint.

I had high hopes that I might purchase a Smith Edison vehicle from www.smithelectricvehicles.com, but when push came to shove, the price tag which is at the thick end of £35,000 and its size proved too great an obstacle in comparison with the £17,000 of its fossil fuel equivalent.

In addition there is absolutely no publicly available infrastructure on the Island of Jersey which would enable us to charge up the vehicle over night. Tragic really when there is so much rhetoric about eco-friendly activity and so little of significance actually being done.

The Island of Jersey is surely an ideal place to start a culture shift in our attitudes to alternative forms of power? Yet it would appear that it won't be until businesses like mine are prepared to take the financial risk required and only after it has been shown to be financially beneficial that a global change in our psyche will take place.

I hope that as a small business although we haven't felt able to take this risk at present, in 36 months time when we come to replace this vehicle that the world will have moved on.

Flavour stability of filter coffee

We've all been there, sat in a pub, had a great lunch / dinner and then ordered a filter coffee only to find that it tastes as bitter as hell and smells burnt.

Who's at fault here, the pub or the coffee roaster?

Well we've put our filter coffee to the test, we brewed 60g of Kenya and Colombian coffee with about 1.5 litres of water in a Bravilor Mondo 2 filter coffee machine. We then tasted the coffee every 15 minutes to see how the flavour of the beverage held up.

1. Freshly brewed - Pleasant light taste, the brightness of the Kenya shining through

2. After 15 minutes - No discernible change in the coffee flavour

3. After 30 minutes - Some of the bright notes starting to get lost. A slightly heavier coffee taste is coming through. Still quite drinkable

4. After 45 minutes - The darker notes are starting to become more prominent, however still drinkable and a good colour when milk is added.

5. After 60 minutes - Hint of a smoky flavour coming through, the lightness of the original brew has now gone, however still an acceptable beverage and retaining a good colour when milk is added.

6. After 85 minutes - Smoky taste becoming more pronounced, still drinkable and still looking fine when milk is added.

7. After 100 minutes - A very discernible burnt taste is now coming through to back up the aromatic change. Surprisingly the colour when milk is added remains good, and the milk (particularly Jersey Yellow) masks and lot of the damage.

8. After 115 minutes - Not much change to the last commentary

9. After 175 minutes - A caramel burnt flavour has now appeared.

The time-scale we used for our test would be typical for an outlet on a quiet day and highlights how important it is to be aware of demand in a food service environment. It's very easy to get a reputation for inconsistent drinks and drive customers away.

My final comment would be a pat on the back to Bravilor whose machine we used. The hot plate although gradually stewing the coffee was doing so at a much slower rate than I thought it might. The engineers have clearly got their holding temperatures set about right which is pleasing to us roasters.

Party Time!

So who would you invite to a fictitious dinner party, if you could choose from both the living and the dead? I was recently asked this question by the local Jersey Evening Post and the following are my thoughts. I fear it does date me though!

Bjorn Borg – A boyhood tennis hero of mine. When he eventually lost to John McEnroe I was devastated. He never returned to Wimbledon and retired a year or two later. Only as I’ve grown older have I appreciated the fleeting nature of success and how when opportunity comes you have to grab it with both hands. The famous poem by Rudyard Kipling found at Wimbledon …. “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same….you’ll be a man my son” should be taught to every child.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta – I always remember reading her obituary and in particular the fact that all she left was the dress she wore and the bowl from which she ate. She was someone who gave her life to those who have nothing, was known by world leaders and did everything she could to help the helpless. What drives such a person?

Margaret Thatcher – She single-handedly put the “Great” back into Great Britain after the decline and decay of the 1970’s. In Jersey we have been fortunate never to have had queues outside the job centre, the ubiquitous UB40 form. We do well as a society to remember such times and that success isn’t guaranteed Yet by the end of her time the electorate couldn’t wait to get rid of her. Maggie, Maggie, Maggie….gone, gone, gone still ring in my disbelieving ears.

Sir John Harvey-Jones – A man who presided over the now crumbling ICI. In charge of a company that was the first at the time to make £1 billion in profit. Yet it’s his help to small business in his subsequent television career that brought him to my attention. His common sense approach and sense of humour always impressed me.

Shirley Bassey – I’ve always liked her as an entertainer, however it was her recent appearance at Glastonbury that got her on my list. Real star quality, what a gift it is to light up peoples lives even if for only an hour. You don’t see “Star quality” written on too many CV’s!

Bob Dylan – An amazing song writer who caught the mood of a generation. My younger son has just started playing the guitar, and one of the songs he is learning to play is “Blowin in the wind”. He loves it, surely the sign of a great song writer when you can transcend generations with your music.

There are so many it seems almost unfair to choose just six.

Grinder trouble

I sometimes think that equipment failure on coffee machines is a bit like London buses; nothing significant happens for months, and then along come three at once.

In the past couple of weeks I've experienced a number of grinder problems, the major ones being blunt blades and settings that have changed markedly from one day to the next.

Grinder discs wear out, fact! - This means that all food service outlets should have in place a programme to monitor the performance of their grinders, whether it's a case of calling in people like me or routinely changing them after a certain period of time based on the volume of sales. Grinders past their "sell by" date do horrific damage to great coffee. Rather than "cutting" the beans, they tend to simply crush them. It may not sound significant, but boy does the taste in the cup tell the story.

In an effort to break down the bean, worn out grinders use a lot of energy. That energy comes out in the form of heat and can raise the temperature of the coffee so much that it burns the coffee. The other major impact is on the flow of the water through the coffee. The range of particle sizes produced by a set of worn out blades is so great that you could spend a lifetime trying to get the water to flow through the coffee correctly but never achieve success. The moral of the story, set up a monitoring programme.

The second issue, that of wildly mis-set grinders usually comes about when someone is over-scrupulous with their cleaning routine . The button that holds the discs in position accidentally gets pushed thereby releasing the blades which in turn "unscrew" leaving you with "chips" of coffee beans. This has happened to me twice in the last 4 days. The problem is easily rectified by resetting the discs to their correct position and then marking the set position so that it can easily be re calibrated if necessary.

It's actually quite an eyeopener for many of my customers to see the impact that an incorrectly set grinder can have on the taste of their coffee, and proves the old adage that you learn more by things going wrong than you ever do when everything goes right.

“Economic and Strategic challenges: Is Jersey capable of being rescued?” - A response to a speech recently given by Senator Stuart Syvret

It’s probably somewhat ironic to be writing this response to Senator Syvret’s speech some 36,000 feet up in the air in a plane somewhere between Los Angeles and London. However such is the nature of this global world in which we live that my organisation’s long term survival relies on me knowing what is happening some 6,000 miles away from my home market.

I have at least assuaged some of my guilt by paying U$6.00 to an organisation called Trees of the Future (http://www.plant-trees.org/main.htm) that will go some way towards my journey being at least partially carbon neutral. Is this something we could offer to those who fly into our Islands?

That aside, what Senator Syvret had to say at the Chamber luncheon should be very seriously reflected upon by our society.

We are extremely fortunate to live in a temperate climate, with full employment and none of the uncertainties faced by many of our fellow human beings around the globe. That fortune though brings responsibilities. Responsibilities we too easily ignore when faced with the certainties of a strong economy and excellent public services.

It has always struck me as somewhat hypocritical in my industry (coffee) that we expect the countries from which we buy our products to be environmentally considerate when we blithely throw away tons of packaging material on a daily basis with sustainability being the last thing on our mind.

So when are we going to wake up and smell the coffee? If Senator Syvret is right Armageddon is just around the corner and we’re sleepwalking straight into it.

Surely it’s therefore about time Jersey, with her vast financial resources took matters into her own hands.

Energy security has to be a matter of huge strategic importance in a world already thinking past the days of cheap oil.

I’ve asked the question before but without answer, when will our planning authorities demand that all new builds have a rain water harvesting capability as a standard building requirement?

When will the use of solar panels also become part of a new build, or subsidies offered to encourage retro-fitting. When will the infrastructure be put in place by Government to encourage the use of electric vehicles?

Why aren’t businesses encouraged through grants to seek out more energy efficient methods of production?

There is so much that needs to be done and still we can barely organise the separation of household waste.

As Senator Syvret says “an entire paradigm shift is required” – not tomorrow or the day after, but today, or will it be a case of looking in our grand-children’s eyes and saying “if only…………..”?

Third wave or just new truths?

For those of you who didn’t even know that there had been a first wave let me explain.

In the very trendiest Barista parlance there have apparently been 3 “coffee waves”. The first took place in the “old days” – that’s around 20 years ago. In those days coffee simply came from a country, whether it was Colombia, Brazil, Kenya etc. By naming the country of origin this was deemed to be “specialty coffee”.

The second wave probably started around 10 years ago with the idea that within a country there were growing regions that could be differentiated – Ethiopia, one of my personal favorites instead of simply having “Djimah” coffee, a blend of various regions, now had Sidamo, Harrar and Yirgacheffe and we coffee roasters started to recognize the significant differences in flavor that each region produced.

So we come to the “third wave”, where regions have given way to individual farms – Ethical trading and fair prices paid for great quality. Baristas in some cases having a relationship with the farmer who has grown the coffee they use.

It seems quite extraordinary that such a change should take place in such a short period of time, but isn’t this the case with so many aspects of modern life – old “truths” replaced by modern “truths”.

But as a customer of mine asked me the other day; Who David is driving this change? I don’t have customers banging on my door demanding to know the name of the farmer whose coffee I just served!

So what is going on here?

I believe that we are witnessing the fallout of Globalization; the rapid dissemination of information through the Internet and a media desperate for news 24/7.

20 years ago the old “truths” held sway. Jobs were for life, international companies didn’t have to worry about exploitation – an age of innocence. The birth of the computer changed all that; the old certainties were swept away – now it’s survival of the fittest.

Middle aged bank tellers were replaced by ATMs along with so many in their position, their experience counting for nothing only cost in the world of the bean counter.

So a younger more transient and questioning workforce has emerged. No longer shackled by that old fashioned term “loyalty” – Not shackled by history, the past, only by the certainty that the only rule is that there are no rules.

A new “truth” has resulted, a more humanitarian one – a meeting of equals. In coffee a sense of unity, equity; your dedication deserves my dedication. In a room in Los Angeles at the SCAA conference the question was put, “but surely this is simply evolution?” – I believe that it’s more like revolution, a revolution of a youth seeking new “truths” because the old truths have been shown to be “lies”.

Optimising coffee taste

There is such a fine line between the "perfect" cup of coffee and disaster that you could make a coffee roaster very paranoid.

When anything goes wrong with the taste of the coffee the first thing blamed is the coffee. "The guy roasting the coffee fell asleep on the job", or "he mixed up the coffees" or heaven forbid "he used an inferior coffee"

Yet most of the time in the food service industry it is usually wear and tear on the equipment, a setting change, or an attempt to push the envelope when it comes to serving an extra large coffee. In the last two or three weeks I've had the "pleasure" of enlightening individuals of the various issues mentioned above.

Case 1. - A worn out set of grinding discs -

This problem is evidenced by the fact that no matter how fine you grind the coffee you can't seem to slow the flow of the water down sufficiently to achieve a "crema" or anything that resembles a decent cup of coffee.

What is happening here is, rather than the coffee being "cut" by the grinder discs it is instead being crushed. Not only that a huge amount of energy is going into the crushing process which in turn heats up the coffee sufficiently to deliver a burnt taste. All in all pretty disastrous.

Change the blades and all your problems are solved. One suggestion I had for an equipment supplier was that when the annual insurance inspection is carried out on the coffee machine automatically change the grinder blades, £35 - £40 well spent.

Case 2. - Incorrectly set blades

This can happen as blades wear. Although in theory the grinder settings should be checked on a daily basis to adapt to various atmospheric conditions this rarely happens in the food service industry. However there should be some monitoring done of the time it takes to make a shot of espresso (between 20 and 30 seconds)

When you reach 10 seconds, as sure as eggs are eggs your customer is going to complain about the insipid watery taste of your coffee. The problem is the water has no time to pick up the flavour that delicately roasted coffee can provide. Solution review your grinder settings, if you're not sure, talk to your supplier, after all it's their coffee you're destroying!

Case 3. - Pushing the envelope

I was helping to set up a machine today, a "bean to cup" variety. Now the maximum amount of coffee this machine could grind was 9 grams, however the customer had a particularly large cup. So we tried to push more water through the coffee, add more milk, basically all the tricks known to man in an attempt to fill that cup with a satisfactory drink, but to no avail.

We started out with a beautifully balanced cup of coffee, and ended up with one of the harshest cups of coffee I have ever had the pleasure of drinking.

Simply put we were trying to get flavours out of the coffee that the average human being is never meant to taste, bitter, burnt, simply nasty as we attempted to fill this cup.

The moral of the story, watch how the colour of the water changes as it runs through the coffee. When you get to the point where the thick crema disappears and almost clear water starts to run through stop the machine, and then come back from there. Don't use the cup as the guide, use your eyes. If you can't increase the dose of ground coffee, reduce the cup size. You'll do everybody a great favour and hopefully enhance coffee sales.

There all you coffee roasters can rest easy, well until the next batch of coffee that seems to have a higher moisture content than usual!

Modern Air travel - My idea of hell!

I had the dubious pleasure of travelling from Jersey to Frankfurt the other day, an experience from which I am still recovering! Not because I was delayed, or missed a flight, no everything in that respect went perfectly well. No it was the endless security searches, being packed in like a farm animal, the soul-less automatic check in, the complete lack of a smile from either passenger, crew or anyone for that fact. What's happened? I always used to look forward to air travel, now I shudder at the thought, where did it all go wrong?

I analysed my experience trying to understand why I felt the way I did.

I went through 5 security checks - shoes off, belt off, jacket off, watch off, keys out, mobile 'phone out, all personal grooming liquids out and placed in a clear plastic bag. Then all put away or put on. In the case of Frankfurt airport twice within 10 minutes!

You show your passport / ticket endlessly

There are endless arguments about only being allowed to take one piece of luggage on the plane

You're permanently in a queue, whether to check-in or go through security

You used to at least have the pleasure of a smiling face when you checked in, now due to advances in technology you're better off checking in electronically because due to reduced staffing levels at the check-in desks the queues have become unbearable.

Seat space - Both airlines in their attempt to ensure maximum capacity stick each chair as close as possible, so that if you have the misfortune to be 6 foot tall (as I am) you are literally unable to move in your seat. No wonder deep veined thrombosis has become an issue in modern travel.

The charging levels for a simple hot drink are outrageous. Surely if a reasonable price were asked then more product would be sold, or is that just me?

Then when you get to the end of your journey, there is a mad rush to get off the aircraft, with not even a semblance of courtesy shown between passengers as people desperately switch on mobile phones in case they've missed something life threatening.


I found the whole experience crushing and demoralising. Is this the ultimate consequence of free market competition? Is this what we deserve if we don't want to pay a reasonable price for our air ticket? Is this the result of airlines trying to maximise returns for their shareholders and woe betide underperformers? I simply don't know

Asked the question is it better to travel than to arrive? My answer, neither, stay at home!

The Challenge of keeping Coffee fresh

Coffee like all organic products deteriorates rapidly in quality when exposed to air for any length of time. The challenge for my industry is how do we slow down this loss of flavour so that you the consumer end up with something that you can drink and enjoy?

On the supermarket shelf two techniques are used. The first is to use a high barrier packaging material. Appalling for the environment , but capable of delivering "shelf life". The second is to modify the atmosphere, whether by removing it altogether, thereby creating a "brick pack", or by changing the gas makeup within the bag, usually to a food grade nitrogen.

The problem is that you can theorise all day about what level of flavour degredation is acceptable, when actually there should be "zero tollerance" in this area if you really want to get the best out of your coffee.

But what do I mean by zero tollerance?

A number of roasters in the US use the term "born on" date which refers to the day on which the coffee was roasted. This at least gives the consumer some idea as to the freshess of the coffee. In theory the best flavour will come from coffee that has been roasted just before you purchase it, however I don't believe this to be the case. My experience is that coffee needs to "settle down" for around 24 hours after it has been roasted. This doesn't mean leaving it out in the open, but simply not using the coffee until it has "calmed down" after roasting. The only comparison I can make is with a good stew. Leave it 24 hours after cooking and all the flavours are so much more developed; well the same is the case with coffee.

So first tip is to buy coffee that has been roasted fairly recently, something of the order of 4 weeks ago should give pretty decent results as long as it has been stored properly over that period.

Buying whole beans and grinding the coffee yourself is the best approach, however some domestic grinders aren't particularly accurate when it comes to getting an even grind which in turn affects the taste of the coffee, particularly espresso based drinks. But that's a whole different blog.

The next important point is that when you get the coffee home and open the packet for the first time that you either reseal the bag taking care to remove as much air as possible, or decant it into a container from which you can remove the air much in the same way as wine is stored after opening the bottle. So called "hermetically sealed" containers simply don't work when it comes to retaining the flavour of the coffee. There's just too much air about.

Finally the coffee should be stored in a cool dry environment to stop the coffee oils evaporating. Once again there is huge debate over the definition of what is meant by "cool". Personally I have no problem storing coffee in the fridge, I know some of our customers store their whole beans in the freezer and grind from frozen. I guess the only danger with the fridge is that other flavours might get into the coffee. My response to that is that if you use a proper barrier storage material, you shouldn't experience any problems.

In summary then, be aware of how long ago the coffee has been roasted. Take great care over how you store it and finally consume it as soon as possible after opening the packet. I suggest a maximum of 10 days, however for espresso you will see a deterioration in the drink quality within 24 hours.

My suggestion, purchase little and often - if you have a speciality coffee shop in your area ask which coffee was the last one to be roasted, that way you should get great coffee every time.

Sunday Trading - We can be different!

Re: Public Consultation – Draft Legislation Paper – Draft Shops (Regulation of Opening and Deliveries) (Jersey) Law 200-

Because this issue runs to the heart of our society it is necessary to look at it in a wider context, that of social and family cohesion.

A Unicef report (“An overview of child well-being in rich countries”) published in February this year placed British children at the bottom of the league of the 21 most developed nations, branding them the least well looked after, the worst behaved and the least happy.

David Cameron commented – “ social breakdown is like a gun aimed at Britain. If we don’t do something soon, the whole community will take the bullet”

Community leaders in the UK and Europe continually use the words “Social and family cohesion”.

Everyone talks a lot about the importance of the family unit but, precious little constructive work appears to be being done to stop what appears to be the inevitable.

Here in Jersey there are immense financial pressures put on families and they break down into two areas.

The first is the cost of living on Jersey. Housing costs in particular mean that in many cases both parents have to work to generate sufficient income to pay the mortgage, but at what social cost?

How can it be healthy for our society when family members barely get an opportunity to talk to each other? What then would be the impact of deregulating Sunday trading, another day, another opportunity lost to the family to communicate with each other.

Simple pleasures like watching a son play football, a daughter playing netball, that sense of a time shared together; “Quality time” all lost because due to competition pressures as their employer now has to open on Sunday to survive.

The second area is a much deeper one that runs through our society; a culture that puts money, performance, competition and consumerism at its heart. A society that thinks that if you sweep the streets you are a failure, yet our society needs such individuals as much as we need Doctors.

Deregulation of Sunday trading only feeds the habit of consumerism; an ethos based on owning things that says that the more things you have the more people will respect you. This attitude is corrosive and a legacy we don’t want to leave to our children.

There has to be a rethink, a reorientation of the values of our society and Jersey sitting at the crossroads has an opportunity here to take I believe a moral stance for the benefit of our Island society.

We can be different to the UK and we should be proud of that fact. Surely that is why people visit this Island, not to shop!

The dumbing down of making great coffee

In my previous blog I bemoaned the lack of demand for training on how to make great coffee in the food service industry.

Having further reflected on this point it's absolutely criminal because it perpetuates the downward spiral of de-skilling staff by bringing in more automation (bean to cup machines) to theoretically deliver a more consistent cup of coffee. Rubbish!

I recently went on site where a "bean to cup" coffee machine had been installed. As a coffee roaster I couldn't make one change to the settings, I was totally reliant on the engineer with his programming key. Our reputation is on the line and yet I can't do a damn thing to change things around even if I believe an adjustment is required.

Yet coffee and milk are both organic products. Their features change on a day to day basis which in turn requires the machine to be constantly monitored but how do you do this if none of the staff even have the first inkling as to what a great cup of coffee should look or taste like?!

So whatever happened to Empowerment? The buzzword used by all management consultatants? You know giving staff the information and training to be able to make informed decisions which in turn actually makes it worthwhile for them to turn up on a Monday morning?

If the Nespresso's, Lavazza's, Senseo's of this world have their way all the coffee we drink will end up being determined by some technician in an annonymous laboratory developing a 20 page spec sheet on what a strong espresso should taste like.

Why bother having different brands when the man from Nespresso knows what you'll like already?

As our lives become ever busier aren't we loosing site of what is important in life? That part of the enjoyment of living is the food and drink we consume. Preparing it, understanding its little nuances, where it comes from? Have we become so sad that we rely on boffins in labs to determine what we will enjoy?

So please all you Baristas in the food service industry, demand more knowledge from your suppliers. It will not only make your job more rewarding , but you'll also bring a smile to the face of your customer.

Training, and why it's vital to survival in business

A key part of our business is the training we provide to our Food Service customers. We provide it for free, yet many of our customers choose not to take up our offer usually with the statement that "our people know what they're doing so don't worry". The problem is I do!

I've been in the coffee industry for nearly 20 years now and not only have training techniques changed significantly in that period so have customer expectations. The sad part is that the staff who make the coffees are usually some of the lowest paid and well you know when you're churning out coffee after coffee and you're not valued you're really not going to pay that much attention to the quality of what you serving. There's that text you've got to send to your mate about tonights gig etc.

So how can business owners / managers change this attitude? Well business owners and managers have to change, they have to start to invest in their staff, but how many small business operators really do? "It's a waste of time, the turnover of staff in the industry's so big anyway"

Well if you treat people like Monkeys they'll act like Monkeys and in the end the business owner will be the biggest Monkey when the business doesn't make the returns expected.

That's why training staff is absolutely vital in this day and age where competition is so fierce. Committed people will do a better job, customers will be happier and come back for more, and guess what the bottom line will look healthier.

I can only speak for coffee, but like so many jobs I'm sure, it may sound simple to do in theory, but very difficult to do with a high level of consistency and excellence in practice.

Is the machine at the correct operating temperature? Did I overheat or underheat the milk? Why is the water racing through the coffee? The questions are endless, but if no one tells you the answers how do you have a cat in hells chance of delivering great coffees?

The most frustrating part for me as a roaster is the lack of respect this attitude of non-training shows to the people who have put a great deal of effort into the manufacture of the product. All the way from the grower, to the processor, to the roaster care will be taken only to be destroyed as it makes its final journey into the cup.

The moral is train, train and train again. You'll make a lot of people very happy!

My Fair Trade's cheaper than yours!

Sustainable practices are the only way forward if our planet is to survive as a hospitable place for future generations.

With "Fair Trade fortnight" now upon us, those goods that attract Fair Trade certification are being heavily promoted to make us all reflect on just where our food comes from and to think about whether producers are getting a fair price.

It therefore irritates me immensely when I see on the Supermarket shelf that there is 20% off Fair Trade products to temp the consumer the buy x brand rather than y brand. We find ourselves in the midst of a bun fight over market share. Tell me then what's the difference between this kind of activity and Nestle putting 10% free extra coffee in a jar, or the ubiquitous B.O.G.O.F. (buy one get one free)? There is none, it's simply large corporations riding on the back of feel good publicity and using it to "buy" market share. Where are the ethics in that? I think that it's cynical expolitation of the lowest type.

I conclude with a reminder that the "Fair Trade" certification programme is just one of many ethical programmes, each of which do a great job in their attempts to provide a sustainable future.

Rainforest Alliance, Utz Kapeh and the Ethical Tea partnership are all third party certifiers who guarantee that both environmental and economic sustainable practices are implemented at origin. Just because your farm doesn't form part of a co-operative doesn't mean that you automatically carry out unsustainable practices, one of the great dangers of using the emotive words "Fair Trade" and looking no further.