Let's Play A Game

Let's Play A Game

From Malawi to Edinburgh: The MF Coffee Project

We take a trip from North Carolina to Northern Malawi to Edinburgh, exploring the roots, roasts, and impact of the MF Coffee Project. BY VASILEIA FANARIOTISENIOR ONLINE CORRESPONDENT Photos courtesy of the MF Coffee Project In the quaint village of Manchewe, Northern Malawi, a story unfolded when Cameron Mcallister made the life-altering decision to relocate […]


Serving Coffee in the Epicenter

The Turkish specialty-coffee community is coming together to support earthquake relief. BY MICHAEL BUTTERWORTHSPECIAL TO BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE When Niji Coffee went live on Instagram, it felt as though the entire Turkish specialty-coffee community was watching with bated breath. Niji Coffee made a name for itself in the Turkish specialty-coffee scene when, as a relatively […]


Breaking New Ground: A Sicilian Coffee Plantation, Part One

The impacts of climate change are starting to be felt in Sicily, but while they’re causing problems, the rising temperatures are also bringing new opportunities. BY JOSEPH PHELANSPECIAL TO BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE Featured image courtesy of Henrique Ferreira on Unsplash The Sicilian love affair with coffee is known the world over. Sicily, the largest of […]


How to roast anaerobically fermented coffee

Among the many different kinds of experimental processing methods, anaerobic fermentation is perhaps the most popular and intriguing. Interest in this processing technique is only growing, with more and more anaerobic fermented coffee available in cafés and roasteries around the world. Moreover, of all the advanced processing methods, this particular technique has one of the […]

Let's Play A Game

4 Cool Cafés to Try Out in Bologna

Bologna, the Italian city home to the world’s oldest university, is traditionally famous for its food and drink—and it has some stellar specialty cafés. BY TANYA NANETTI SENIOR ONLINE CORRESPONDENT Featured photo by Annie Spratt via Unsplash Bologna is home to the oldest university in the world and is the unofficial “capital“ of the porticos […]


Brewing at Home and on the Road with Justin Pierce

In this series, we ask coffee professionals how they like to drink their coffee while at home and when traveling. BY TANYA NANETTISENIOR ONLINE CORRESPONDENT Feature photo courtesy of Justin Pierce Coffee professionals tend to spend most of their days brewing coffee. Baristas brew coffee behind the bar for their customers. Roasters brew it to […]


Know Your Sweeteners: Agave: Part Two—Environmental Concerns

Agave has become an increasingly popular sweetener in the coffee industry. But is it as environmentally friendly as people claim it to be? BY EMILY JOY MENESESBARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE Featured photo sourced via Pixabay In recent years, you may have noticed an increase in demand for “alternative sweeteners” like agave. While today, the nectar serves […]


Study Shines New Light on the Complex Arabica Coffee Genome

Researchers in Italy say they’ve shed new light on arabica coffee’s large and complex genome, which may ultimately help breeders seeking desirable traits such as high quality and disease resistance….

Let's Play A Game

PRF El Salvador announces speakers and panellists

Following a call for applications in October 2022, Producer & Roaster Forum (PRF) has announced its first speakers and panellists for PRF El Salvador. The two-day forum will be held on 16 and 17 March 2023 at the Salamanca Exhibition Centre in San Salvador. The event is set to return to El Salvador after it […]


Conflict in the Red Sea: Why coffee roasters need to prepare for shipping delays

Like many other industries, conditions in the coffee supply chain can change quickly, and in turn, have a huge impact on all actors and stakeholders. Price volatility is one of the more pertinent – which is influenced by many factors. These include fluctuations in supply and demand, extreme or unexpected weather events, global economic downturn, […]


Oklahoma’s T3 Roasters Completes a Historic Opening

Oklahoma-based coffee company T3 Roasters has opened a flagship brick-and-mortar roastery and coffee bar called T3 Coffee Co., inside a thoroughly remodeled historic building in downtown Collinsville. The building is…


Lvl Up Coffee Hits High Scores In Normal, Illinois

Specialty coffee in the central Illinois town of Normal has reached a new stage of quality with the opening of Lvl Up Coffee Bar. Brought to life by coffee roaster…

Let's Play A Game

Let's Play A Game

minimum dose size?

Jan 31, 2024 |

I use the Hario switch to brew my coffee and am trying to reduce my caffeine consumption. Hence I would like to brew smaller cups of coffee. I am currently using 10g of coffee with 160g of water. (1:16 Ratio) I am wondering if there is a minimum amount of coffee...

Let's Play A Game

I recently posted a roast curve on my IG to illustrate how the way one sets the axes (the ranges for time, temperature, and ROR) affects a curve’s appearance. 

For instance, if one sets the ranges too high, a curve may look like this: 

Note how the ROR curve is compressed into a tiny vertical space. Curve views like this one are quite common (and useless).

Note how the ROR curve is compressed into a tiny vertical space. Curve views like this one are quite common (and useless).

Minimizing the ranges of the axes expands the curves and provides a better view: 

Red = Inlet Temp… Blue = Bean Temp ROR…Green = Environmental Temp

Red = Inlet Temp… Blue = Bean Temp ROR…Green = Environmental Temp

While this may seem obvious to many readers, I see a tremendous number of roasters, both in person and on Instagram, setting their graph axes more like the former than the latter. Such curve views will make a roaster overly confident in his or her results. Quality Control and progress will suffer.

A while back, I badgered the fine folks at Cropster to automatically adjust the axis ranges. While Cropster can’t do that during a roast, as it has no way of knowing what the necessary ranges will be, they listened and made the range-minimization automatic when viewing past roasts. 

The same principle of optimizing the curve view applies to adjusting ROR smoothing (via the ROR interval in Cropster or the delta span in Artisan) and using appropriately responsive and well-located probes. These are fundamental — not advanced — concepts. Simply put, if you don’t practice all of them, you’re handicapping your roast-curve analysis for no good reason.

Going back to the Instagram post, many commenters volunteered opinions about how the coffee and the curve. I was surprised by many of the assumptions people made about what the operator had done or how aspects of the curve would affect the coffee’s flavor. (Hint: the timing of the turn is meaningless and if someone else’s turn is higher or lower than yours, it says nothing about flavor.)

Typing with one’s thumbs on Instagram is not an efficient way to have long conversations, so I thought I’d turn the discussion into a blog post. Some readers may not want to risk making mistakes publicly, but the only way to learn is to put yourself out there and have this discussion. If this conversation is productive and involves a diversity of commenters, perhaps this “game” will become a series. If that appeals to you, please participate. 

So, what can (and can’t!) you glean from the curve below? Please, no questions about the coffee, machine, or curve; only answers. I’m intentionally not providing any more information than what you see below. There are no “tricks” involved — the machine, probe, coffee, batch size, between-batch protocol, etc, all fall within the realm of reasonable “best practices.” Thank you.

Red = Inlet Temp… Yellow = Environmental Temp… Blue = Bean Temp ROR

Red = Inlet Temp… Yellow = Environmental Temp… Blue = Bean Temp ROR

Let's Play A Game

Perfect Little Beans

Chinmey Hill Coffee uses specialty-grade beans with zero primary defects (such as black beans or sour beans) and less than five secondary defects (such as broken beans). This is important because primary defects will greatly affect the taste of the coffee. Having zero defects allows the coffee to be the most optimal flavor.

Window for Optimal Flavor

Chimney Hill Coffee ships our coffee the same day it was roasted, so you will receive it before it enters the window of optimal flavor.  This means you’ll never miss the opportunity to enjoy the coffee’s peak flavor.

Coffee Ratings

Coffee undergoes many scoring processes by professionals who achieved their Q Grader certification. Coffee is first graded when it’s green. If there are defects the coffee is determined to be “not-specialty grade”. For those coffees that pass green grading, they are sample roasted and cupped. (Cupping is the official term for critically tasting and scoring coffees. The official cupping form is standard worldwide, and where the 100-point scoring system comes from.) A coffee’s dry fragrance, wet aroma, flavor, aftertaste, body, acidity, balance, and overall impression are taken into consideration while uniformity issues and defects, will lower the overall score.

Specialty Coffee

Specialty coffee, coined by Erna Knutsen in 1974, refers to a coffee that receives a quality grading score of 80 percent or higher. While “premium” or “gourmet” seem like they’re synonymous with “specialty,” they simply are marketing terms with no defined standards. Specialty coffees are grown in specific and ideal micro-climates, and have distinctive and unique flavor profiles, with little to no defects.

Third-Wave Coffee

We’re currently in the third wave of coffee. The first wave of American coffee put pre-ground, vacuum-sealed cans in kitchens across America. The second wave started with the late ‘60s introduction of Peet’s coffee (by Alfred Peet) through the proliferation of Starbucks. The third wave of coffee focuses on origin transparency, nuanced flavors, and artisan roasting. The term “third wave” is synonymous with specialty coffee.

Let's Play A Game

Shopping cart0
There are no products in the cart!
Continue shopping
0