What Makes A Great Coffee? The Person Or The Coffee Machines?
Does the person making the coffee have all the power to make it great or bad, or is it all about the coffee machines themselves? If you are a barista and you have to make coffees all day every day then you can probably answer this question; unless you aren't very good and you might think it is the machines fault? We all like our coffees a certain way, and when we get a horrible tasting one, well it can ruin our whole day. Usually you can have a favourite place to go that you always get a nice coffee, however if the person behind the machine changes, does the coffee change dramatically? And if so is it all down to the person or the machine? We hardly think of how hard it must be to make a nice cup of coffee, because we are usually tapping our finger waiting for it so we can rush off to wherever we have to go. So how hard is it to make a coffee?
Coffee machines are difficult things to master, and they do not make it easy either. There are the type that are automatic and basically do most of the work for us, however this does not guarantee that you will not muck up your part. With an automatic machine you still have to tamper in the coffee into the basket and then connect it to the machine, then you just press a button for one shot or two and the machine does it for you. However, did you know that one of the most important parts of the coffee making process is tampering the coffee? If you tamper it too lightly then it is not going to be tight enough to get all the flavour out, and well if you tamper it too hard, then you ruin the flavour and the colouring. Plus we have yet to get to the milk! The milk can make or ruin a coffee, because even if you have extracted a perfect shot and everything is perfect, if you burn the milk and ruined the texture, then the coffee just will not be as nice as it could have been.
The art of making coffee is a difficult one, and it does take a lot of practice to make sure you have mastered it. A lot of us have our own techniques and will make coffee a lot differently to others around the world; but if it tastes great every time then it shouldn't matter what your technique is really. Even if you are the greatest barista that ever lived, I'm sure from time to time there is going to be a coffee that is not up to its usual standard, but that happens to everyone right?
I guess in the end what it comes down to is if the person knows how to treat the machine properly or not. They have to be cleaned after a certain amount of coffees and they have to be flushed out in order to not have coffees tasting of old beans. If the barista has little experience then of course the beverages are not going to taste great every time, however all we can ask for in our baristas is that they learn from their mistakes and hopefully get it right the next time.
Coffee machines make our mornings go round really, and we do need to know what we are doing in order to get that great cup of coffee that we have been searching for. If we learn what type of machines is out there and pair it with someone who knows how to use them correctly, then I'm sure we will get a nice coffee every time.
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Tags: barista, catering equipment, coffee, Coffee equipment, coffee machine, coffee machines, espresso machines, machinesApril 08 2011 | coffee | No Comments »