The perfect coffee

It's not every day you're in a room with 60 different single estate coffees!

Yesterday I joined Has Bean Coffee's Meetup Group to learn more about making better coffee.  Has Bean coffee has already been mentioned in this blog here, it's the best place I know to get really good coffee.

Has Bean's owner, Steve Leighton is fanatical about coffee, and his enthusiasm is infectious!  

I was slightly in awe of being in a room with over 30 coffee connoisseurs, but I found them a really friendly group who were keen to share their knowledge (and passion) about coffee.

We heard about where the coffee came from and some of the potential problems you can get when buying coffee from different coffee growing areas.

Steve started roasting coffee in a frying pan, but has now graduated to using this big Probat coffee roaster:

He's also got smaller roasters as he tries to roast every order fresh on the day of dispatch: 

(which is not easy when you've got 60 different varieties).

We were then talked through how to taste coffee.  I've learnt that coffee should always be freshly ground, it's one of his 10 commandments. Steve tells you to grind coffee, and smell it straight away. Then after ten minutes return and smell again. In just ten minutes what was great coffee had become good coffee.

We smelt the coffee and then added hot water:

We were then taught how to assess the coffee aroma, fragrance, and flavour profile

There's a lot more to coffee cupping than I'd first thought!

Steve pointed out that whilst fine wines can cost well over a £100, you can buy a really good bag of coffee for under a fiver, so it's an affordable luxury!

Steve then talked us through different coffee making methods:

I quite fancy a Uber Boiler and a green coffee roaster but my first priorities are to get a better grinder and then an espresso machine.  Steve sold me an AeroPress Coffee & Espresso maker which is a really cheap way to make good coffee.

If that wasn't enough, he'd also invited John Gordon (the 2010 UK Barista Champion) and Colin Harman (the 2009 Irish Barista Champion) along to tell us how to make the perfect coffee:

This was a fantastic double act!  They used analogies (like how water passed through a bucket of sand) to make us think about how water passes through an espresso machine.  We needed to consider the amount of coffee, the finest of the grind, how much the coffee has been tamped, the temperature and pressure of the water. Apparently the only constants in the room were John and Colin, who stay awake at night worrying about such things!

They even deliberately made us bad coffee so we could learn to recognise what was wrong.  We could try the first, middle and later extractions from espresso machines:

I never want to drink coffee in cafés where they try to get every last drop out!  At the end of the packed day we were all given a bag of coffee.  I chose a Panama SHG La Esmeralda Estate, "Palmyra" which has vanilla, walnut and chocolate profile; think walnut whip without the calories! We were also given a Has Bean cup:  

It was a great day, thanks Steve and also all your helpers.  If you want to go on the next one, I should book it as soon as it's announced as it will be quickly filled up by the regulars!

I was listening to the BBC Radio 4 Food Programme today, about how food producers can get their message across.  Producers could learn a lot from Steve who, besides his website, is using a blog, Facebook, Flickr, Forums, and Twitter.  Most people at the Meetup were members of the Has Bean subscription service (where you get a different pack of coffee every week) and watch Steve's In my mug video, where Steve gives you more information about that week's coffee.  Apparently he's even got a subscriber in Thailand!

Web: www.hasbean.co.uk