All About Coffee, William H. Ukers [short story to read .txt] 📗
- Author: William H. Ukers
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Coffee roasters are divided on this question of coffee-coating. The best thought of the trade is undoubtedly opposed to the practise when it is done to conceal inferiority or abnormally to reduce shrinkage. Some New York coffee roasters, who made a thorough investigation of the matter, found coating coffee with a wholesome material not injurious and the coated coffee better in the cup. Dr. Harvey W. Wiley found, in the celebrated Ohio case against Arbuckle Brothers, that coating coffee with sugar and eggs produced beneficial results, and that the coating preserved the bean. The Bureau of Chemistry has never issued any ruling on the subject of coating coffee.
Blending Roasted Coffee
After cooling and stoning, unless it is to be polished or glazed, the coffee is ready for grinding and packing if it has been blended in the green state. Otherwise, the next step will be to mix the different varieties before grinding, although some packers blend the different kinds after they have been ground. To mix whole-bean roasted coffee without hurting its appearance is rather difficult, and there is no regular machine for such work.
Rarely is a single kind of coffee drunk straight. The common practise in all countries is to mix different varieties having opposing characteristics so as to obtain a smoother beverage. This is called blending, a process that has attained the standing of an art in the United States. Most package coffees are blends. In addition to other qualities, the practical coffee blender must have a natural aptitude for the work. He must also have long experience before he becomes proficient, and must be acquainted with the different properties of all the coffees grown, or at least of those that come to his market. Furthermore, he must know the variations in characteristics of current crops; for in most coffees no two crops are equal in trade values. Innumerable blends are possible with more than a hundred different coffees to draw upon.
A blend may consist of two or more kinds of coffee, but the general practise is to employ several kinds; so that, if at any time one can not be obtained, its absence from the blend will not be so noticeable as would be the case if only two or three kinds were used.
In blending coffees, consideration is given first to the shades of flavor in the cup and next to price. The blender describes flavors as, acidy, bitter, smooth, neutral, flat, wild, grassy, groundy, sour, fermented, and hidey; and he mixes the coffees accordingly to obtain the desired taste in the cup. Naturally the wild, sour, groundy, fermented, and hidey kinds are avoided as much as possible. Coffees with a Rio flavor are used only in the cheaper blends.
Generally speaking, a properly balanced blend should have a full rich body as a basis; and to this should be added a growth to give it some acid character, and one to give it increased aroma.
Personal preference is the determining factor in making up a blend. Some blenders prefer a coffee with plenty of acid taste; while others choose the non-acid cup. For the first-named kind, the blender will mix together the coffees that have an acidy characteristic; while for a non-acidy blend, he will mix an acidy growth with one having a neutral flavor.
This is a self-contained plant for one or two bags, and comprises a roaster, rotary cooler, elevator feed hopper, electric motor, and stoning and chaffing attachments. It may be equipped for gas]
Coffees can be divided into four great classes, the neutral-flavored, the sweet, the acidy, and the bitter. All East Indian coffees, except Ceylons, Malabars, and the other Hindoostan growths, are classified as bitter, as are old brown Bucaramangas, brown Bogotas, and brown Santos. The acid coffees are generally the new-crop washed varieties of the western hemisphere, such as Mexicans, Costa Ricas, Bogotas, Caracas, Guatemalas, Santos, etc. However, the acidity may be toned down by age so that they become sweet or sweet-bitter. Red Santos is generally a sweet coffee, and is prized by blenders. High-grade washed Santo Domingo and Haiti coffees are sweet both when new crop and when aged.
Practical coffee blenders do not mix two new-crop acid coffees, or two old-crop bitter kinds, unless their bitterness or acidity is counteracted by coffees with opposite flavors. One blender insists that every blend should contain three coffees.
Some Bourbon and flat-beaned Santos coffees are better when new, and some are better when old; but a blend of fine old-crop coffee with a snappy new-crop coffee gives a better result than either separately. A new-crop Bourbon and an old yellow flat bean make a better blend than a new-crop flat bean and an old-crop Bourbon. Probably the very best result in a low-priced blend may be obtained by using one-half old-crop Bourbon Santos with one-half new-crop Haiti or Santo Domingo of the cheaper grades.
Typical low-priced coffee blends in the United States may be made up of a good Santos, possibly a Bourbon, and some low-cost Mexican, Central American, Colombian, or Venezuelan coffee, the Santos counteracting these acidy Milds.
Going next higher in the scale of price, fancy old Bourbon Santos is used with one-third fancy old Cucuta or a good Trujillo.
For a blend costing about five cents more a pound retail, one-third fancy old Cucuta or Merida is blended with fancy old Bourbon Santos.
The highest-priced blend may contain two-thirds of a fine private estate Sumatra and one-third Mocha or Longberry Harari.
Alfred W. McCann, while advertising manager for Francis H. Leggett & Co., New York, in 1910, evolved a new coffee distinction based on the argument that certain coffees like Mochas, Mexicans, Bourbons, and Costa Ricas were developed in the cup through the action on them of cream or milk; while others, such as Bogotas, Javas, Maracaibos, etc., flattened out when cream or milk was added. He argued, accordingly, that breakfast coffees should be made up from the former, but that the latter should not be used except for after-dinner coffees, to be drunk black.[328] William B. Harris, then coffee expert for the United States Department of Agriculture, took issue with Mr. McCann, claiming that if a coffee is watery and lacks body, it will not take kindly to milk or cream, not because the chemical action of milk or cream flattens it out, but because there is nothing there in the first place. The strength of the brew being equal, all coffees will take cream or milk, Mr. Harris held.[329]
Designed for hotel and restaurant trade
M.J. McGarty said in 1915 that he had tried out many coffees in the cup, and could not see that adding milk made any difference. However, he found that sometimes a line of coffees will contain a sample that flattens out at the drinking point (the point where the boiling water has cooled to permit of its being drunk); and he thought this was what Mr. McCann had in mind, as, by adding milk to such a coffee, it was brought back to the drinking point. In other words, it was Mr. McGarty's opinion that, in blending coffees, those coffees which hold their own from the start, or boiling point, until they become cold, or even improve right through, are more desirable for blending purposes; and that those that are best at the drinking point should be given the preference.[330]
Coffee Blends for Restaurants
William B. Harris[331] believes that the coffee of prime importance in preparing restaurant blends is Bogota. He advises the use of a full-bodied Bogota and an acid Bourbon Santos in the proportion of three-fourths Bogota to one-fourth Santos. Blends may also be made up from combinations of Bogota, Mexicans, and Guatemalas.
According to Mr. Harris, the average blend of good coffee when made up, two and one-half pounds of coffee to five gallons of water, will produce a liquor of good color and strength. For many hotels, however, this may not answer, as it is not heavy enough. More coffee must then be used, or ten percent of chicory added. A blend with chicory can be made by using two-thirds Bogota, one-third Bourbon Santos, and ten percent chicory. No steward, hotel man, or restaurant man should, however, advertise "coffee" on his menu, and then serve a drink employing chicory; because, while there is no federal law against such a practise, there are state laws against it. Chicory is all right in its place; and many prefer a drink made from coffee and chicory; but such a drink can not properly be called coffee.
Hotel men should purchase their coffee in the bean, and do their own grinding. Then they need never have cause to complain that their coffee man deceived them, or that some salesman misled them. The hotel steward wishing to furnish his patrons with a heavy-bodied coffee, particularly a black after-dinner coffee, without chicory, will use three, four, or even four and one-half pounds of ground coffee to five gallons of water.
With so wide a choice of coffees to choose from, a coffee blender can make up many combinations to meet the demands of his trade. Probably no two blenders use exactly the same varieties in exactly the same proportions to make up a blend to sell at the same price. However, they all follow the same general principles laid down in the foregoing flavor classification of the world's coffees.
Grinding and Packaging Coffee
Unless the coffee is to be sold in the bean, it is sent to the grinding and packing department, to be further prepared for the consumer. Since the federal food law has been in effect, the public has gained confidence in ground and bean coffee in packages; and today a large part of the coffee consumed in the United States is sold in one and two pound cartons and cans, already blended and ready for brewing.
A progressive coffee-packing house may have three different styles of grinding machines; one called the granulator for turning out the so-called "steel-cut" coffee; the second, a pulverizer for making a really fine grind; and the third, a grinding mill for general factory work and producing a medium-ground coffee.
Commercial coffee-grinding machines are alike in principle in all countries, the beans being crushed or broken between toothed or corrugated metal or stone members, one revolving and the other being stationary. While all grinding machines are alike in principle, they may vary in capacity and design. The average granulator will turn out about five hundred pounds of "steel-cut" coffee in an hour; the pulverizer, from seventy-five to two hundred pounds; and the average grinding mill from five hundred to six hundred pounds. Some types of grinding machines have chaff-removing attachments to remove, by air suction, the chaff from the coffee as it is being ground.
A large number of trade terms for designating different grinds of coffee are used in the United States, some of them meaning the same thing,
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