Caffe Vita Public Brewing School
Last week I attended Caffe Vita’s Public Brewing School, and it was a fantastic learning experience. The class was led by Andy, Caffe Vita’s barista trainer, and Mason, who travels the world buying their green coffee beans. Mason started out the night by talking about the history of Vita’s green coffee bean buying program, and their current focus on Farm-Direct. It was really cool to hear about his trip to Guatamala, where he met with different farmers, and got a feel for the entire culture that revolves around the coffee harvest. We then took his find from that trip, the Guatamala Finca Nueva Viñas, through a tour of 5 different brewing preparations: pour-over, french press, Bialetti, syphon, and a slow-drip cold-extraction, to see the differences that each style of brewing imparted on the final product.
We learned lots of great tips and tricks, but what amazed me most was the range of flavors that came from the exact same beans. Typically, when I taste something different in a cup, I immediately assume it’s a different roast, so it was really eye-opening to have five completely different tastes back-to-back, all from the same bag of beans. At home I usually make a french press (my favorite method) or a bialetti, and Brian’s been experimenting with pour-overs and the Chemex at Tougo, but the syphon and the slow-drip were brand new experiences for me.
The syphon was effectively a vacuum pot, but this particular one was a flashy-showpiece, a japanese device that looked like chemistry lab glassware, and whose heat source was a halogen light beam, that made the room glow. With a very quick extraction (~30-45 seconds), this was the cleanest tasting coffee I’ve ever had. It reminded me more of black tea than coffee, and I could easily drink this all day.
The slow-drip cold-extraction (another japanese device, of which I didn’t catch a name), was the polar opposite. This thing brews coffee one room-temperature drop at a time, roughly 1 drop every 1.5 seconds, so it takes roughly 12 hours to make a pot. It again looked like it belonged in science lab: the machine was a few feet tall, with a little dial to adjust the drip rate. The coffee was unlike any I’d had before; it was sweet and syrupy, tasting like Kahlua without the alcohol. Unlike toddy, it didn’t taste over-extracted at all, it was really clean and pure. I couldn’t imagine drinking more than a small cup, or pouring it over some ice cream for dessert, but it was delicious.
If you’re into coffee at all, I highly recommend checking out this class next time it is offered. It reminded me of the first time I went to Napa Valley. I had drank plenty of wine before then, and I’ve drank coffee several times a day for probably 15 years, but they were both palate-changing experiences, that gave me a whole new appreciation for the nuances of each beverage. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still drink drip coffee from a gas station out of a styrofoam cup (just like I’ll still drink Carlo Rossi), but my horizon has shifted for sure.
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