I have a Bachelor of Science Degree in Financial Management and have been fortunate enough to find jobs where I was actually able to use that degree. The bulk of my professional career has been working as an analyst for a bank and an insurance company, and my coffee consumption, scrutiny, and tolerance has increased during this time. This isn’t really a flex (though it literally would have been a weird one if it was), it has something to do with this post’s topic.
A Colombian-Israeli startup named Demetria is reported to have created an artificial intelligence data platform that supposedly can determine the quality of beans. We’ve seen that viral video of a robot making a latte, complete with latte art, but this takes it to another level – this is automating something only experienced professionals with impeccable senses are able (and licensed) to do.
Home coffee brewers, especially those who only started during the pandemic, I know I’m not the only who will commit to a specific dripper/brewer and beans combination for the day. Now, unless you’re a robot (or using a precision brewer), you won’t brew coffee 100% similar every time but you can make it as close as possible – especially if you’ve taken notes (which I don’t). But does it still happen that however hard you try, your resulting cups of coffee still taste different from each other? According to these articles, that may be because of what you’re hearing while drinking the coffee.
Those following me on Instagram (@shareyourkape) probably have seen that I was a tad bit too eager to pull the trigger on buying home brewing equipment, not to mention buying coffee beans frequently. Now that I’m working from home, I can’t rely on Baristas to prepare me good coffee anymore due to lockdown and the need to follow social distancing protocols. I also have more time to learn how to make coffee at home, thus I have no more excuses. So although I started the lockdown drinking instant coffee, I knew it wouldn’t be sustainable (and shouldn’t be). But here’s the thing: I’ve been doing this during one of the harshest summers in the Philippines that I can remember, and I’m still drinking hot coffee – and I think it helps.
Ceramic V60, glass carafe, digital scale (a cheap one), and timemore c2 grinder all bought from Lazada.
This is something I have been thinking of doing since I started my first food blog: have people blind taste three different types of coffee and see what they think they like better. Specifically, will they know what the instant coffee is at least and will they like specialty coffee? Partly I also want to stop the saying that “all coffee tastes the same, no need to buy expensive coffee.”
Can you tell which is the instant, pre-ground bought from the grocery, and specialty coffee?
After 6 years, I finally have three types together at one time: higher grade than usual (still bad tasting though) instant coffee; pre-ground coffee from the grocery; and a Syrupy and Fruity coffee from Kenya. Problem is, it’s still Enhanced Community Quarantine season and I only have two people who can help me with this experiment: my wife who is a coffee drinker but not as crazy as me; and my uncle (technically my mother’s cousin) who helps us out here in the house – he is a heavy drinker of instant coffee, 3-in-1 to be exact. So two people as your test population does not really give you solid, irrefutable findings from a study, but it’s the best I can do right now. Still had some good findings, though, so do read on.
Aside from the instant coffee – which I just took 1/3 of a teaspoon for each test, poured hot water on it, and stirred – I tried to make it as uniform of a brew between the pre-ground coffee and the specialty coffee as much as possible, even the grind.
This was the pre-ground coffee being brewed in a french press for the experiment. Aside from it looking like mud, notice that there is little to no bubbles on top
Now the Kenya brewed the way I prefer it after the experiment. Notice the difference?
Now as of this writing, my scale is still “being packed by seller” according to Lazada so I can’t tell you exactly how much coffee to water there is, but I have a system to yield as consistent of a cup of coffee each time in place. Eye balling everything in a shot glass and a small French press, I applied James Hoffman’s French Press technique to both the Pre-Ground and Kenya. Now, I have found that grinding the Kenya beans to medium (maybe even medium coarse) and using this technique yielded the taste of coffee I liked: Syrupy, tastes like brown sugar, with a slight acidity that helps accentuate the sweetness. That would immediately tell you this was specialty coffee so I tried to at least even it out by grinding the specialty coffee similar to the how the pre-ground were: medium fine.
I placed the coffee in three similar tea cups (yes, tea cups from a set of six), remembering exactly where I placed which, let them cool down so they can actually taste the nuances in their flavor (if there are any), and reminded my subjects to slurp the coffee when drinking each one. That is the test. Oh, if you were wondering, I use filtered water. Not sure just how soft it is, but I does not taste bad when you drink it on its own.
Of course the instant coffee, Nescafe Gold to be exact, tasted – well just bitter. I always have to add about half a teaspoon of sugar for every teaspoon of coffee to be able to drink this. For this test, I added no sugar whatsoever. The pre-ground coffee, Gourmet Farms’ Baraco Batangas, still assaulted you with bitterness upon sipping but at least had a chocolatey aftertaste and slightly better aroma – it actually smells like jackfruit (langka). It had no exact roast date but it did say a manufacturing date of 12/28/19 (I bought this April 2020, you really can’t expect much from this anymore) with an expiry date of 12/28/20 (eye-roll). The Kenya brewed this way became more acidic than usual but in a good way. In a way it tasted more fruity than sugary/syrupy. I still like it but I prefer it as syrupy with its body.
This is how the store-bought coffee looked like, I tried to match the grind of the Kenya like this for the experiment
Now at the end of this experiment, I asked my wife to switch the cups around without me looking and I was still able to know which was which. It was easy to just spot the Kenya with its color but I had to taste the pre-ground and the instant to know which one it was. I’m not telling you I have the perfect palate, I just know what they taste like when I was preparing the coffee for the experiment.
Not surprisingly, both of them hated the instant coffee, helping my cause of saying that instant coffee isn’t Kape. My uncle immediately reacted to how bitter it was and my wife said it “bit” her tongue, something I also experienced. It was like the instant coffee “latched on” to my tongue for a brief moment. The bitterness also lingered. To be fair, it does taste more like milk chocolate as it cools further, but it still “bites” and still has a bitter aftertaste. It’s in the not instant ones where the results become interesting.
Looks fancy, tastes not so good
My uncle did not like the acidity of the Kenya. He just described it as “maasim” or sour. From what I read, this is a normal reaction of casual coffee drinkers to specialty coffee: they just lump acidity with sourness. I admit I didn’t brew the perfect cup with this eyeball method, but from my taste it still had a balanced, pleasant fruitiness. He loved the pre-ground coffee, and even asked to have the entire thing for himself. I offered to add sugar to it but he declined from any sweetener.
My wife took longer to decide on what she wanted between the pre-ground and Kenya. This was about 11 in the morning and she had to eat breakfast first before drinking any coffee, and she was still munching on a slice of white bread with chunky cookie butter spread when conducting the taste test. In the end she chose the Kenya as her favorite because of its fruitiness and it going better with her single slice sandwich.
So the findings from this informal experiment:
What could be a con from this experiment? If not done properly, like not as good as I could here with incomplete equipment, it could drive people away from specialty coffee more. Yes, you can stop them from drinking instant coffee, but you could just make a case for them to drink pre-ground coffee (the kind you buy from a grocery, still not that much help for the betterment of the coffee industry).
Say what you want about my brewing method, I still added evidence to how not Kape Instant Coffee really is
Will I do this again? Absolutely – but better. I recently hit 500 followers on Instagram and to celebrate I went a little crazy on Lazada. I ordered a V60, a scale, and a gooseneck kettle with a thermometer. The scale and the kettle, not the best quality, but at least I can somewhat brew better. Watch out for more experiments!
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