Why does my heart go thump?

This story begins thousands of miles away with the planet’s finest coffee cherries. These precious green beans are roasted in small batches and shipped directly to thump at their peak. Masters of the subtle art of coffee preparation, our thumpistas keep the love flowing directly into your cup. Read on to become a Thumpologist.

Coffee Blends - A Different Story

July’s Thumpology explored the seasonality of coffee harvesting and how, like eating fresh produce when it’s in season, drinking coffees brewed from newly harvested beans is a more flavorful and enjoyable experience. Some coffeehouses — like thump — feature ever-changing drip coffee offerings that reflect what coffees have been recently harvested around the world. As mentioned last month, coffee blends have a different story to tell.

If you visit a coffeehouse and notice the same blend of beans being served throughout the year, the coffee roaster might use the same beans each time to create that blend (for example, a combination of Guatemalan, Indonesian and Brazilian). Those green beans might be up to a year old — the time passed since the last harvest.

Here’s a different scenario: Throughout the year, the roaster uses different, newly harvested beans in the blend and recreates a consistent flavor for the blend. For example, thump uses Stumptown Coffee Roaster’s Hair Bender Espresso Blend 365 days of the year. It’s Stumptown’s challenge to maintain a consistent flavor profile in this blend using an ever-changing selection of coffees.

Stumptown continually explores the body, complexity, acidity and flavor compatibility of their coffees. Each coffee that makes up the blend is roasted separately to develop its individual flavor profile so it will be optimally compatible with the other beans in the blend as well as to address its unique physical aspects, such as bean size, density, and moisture content (see past thumpologies on roasting). The beans are then blended together at the proper ratio to maintain that beautifully complex flavor that keeps us all coming back for more.

If you strip away the milk and flavorings and just taste the espresso, you’ll appreciate that this blend is dynamic and changing subtly and tantalizingly throughout the year because of its ever-changing “ingredients” — but it’s consistently delicious! To blend well without taking the beans to a dark roast, which effectively roasts out the flavors of the individual beans, is a true art. Three cheers for a great blend and a talented roaster!

Coffee Crop Seasonality - Get it While It's Fresh!

Many people don't think of coffee as an agricultural product that, like strawberries, peaches, and cherries, has a specific growing season. When fresh fruit is in season, you're in heaven and you can't get enough of it! When out of season, it's usually a disappointment to eat. Similarly, coffees around the world ripen and are ready for harvest at different times of the year, and a newly harvested coffee is oh so good! Even when stored in its unroasted, green bean state, its flavor changes and ages over time in a not so graceful way.

If you go to a coffeehouse and notice that they offer the same bean year round, (blends are a different subject) with the knowledge that most growing regions have only one or two annual harvests, you might wonder how old that coffee really is, regardless of how recently it's been roasted. The age of the green bean does affect its roasted flavor.

If you look at Thump's whole bean selection, you will notice that it is always changing. A great thing for the flavor adventurer, and a little nerve-racking for the person who wants the same bean every time. Our selection changes because our coffee roaster, Stumptown Coffee Roasters, buys coffees in small quantities when they are at their optimal age for roasting. And to insure freshness, Stumptown rarely buys more than can be consumed within a handful of months.

When the beans are gone, they're gone until the next harvest. When they do come back, we feel like an old friend has returned to us! Two of those friends just returned to Thump, the Guatemala Finca el Injerto, Stumptown's first Direct Trade coffee, and the Panama Carmen Estate, Direct Trade. If you're ready to put your toddy glass down for a minute to try a hot coffee, both of these friends will treat you right!

What Makes Cold Brewed Toddy So Tasty?

Once the season hints at warm weather, we get requests to start making our divinely refreshing cold brewed toddy. Most brewing processes use hot water and take a relatively short time, anywhere from 23 seconds to 6 minutes. Toddy however, requires cold water, a lot of coffee grounds, and patience, about 20 hours! The cold water does not extract acidic, or citrusy notes, like hot water. The result is a wonderfully smooth, ever so slightly sweet, refreshing beverage that's served iced.

Give our cold brewed toddy a try the next time you're in the shop and looking for an iced beverage. It will likely become your summer drink!

Processing Coffee - From Fresh Cherry to Dried Green Bean

In previous Thumpology articles we've discussed how the roast can affect a coffee's flavor. How it is processed after harvest can have an even more significant influence on its ultimate flavor.

Not to be confused with processing food, which might involve removing nutrients, adding artificial stabilizers, flavors, preservatives, etc., processing coffee is an all-natural sequence of steps taken after picking the coffee to prepare it for market.

Coffees are harvested when the fruit surrounding the bean, known as the cherry, is ripe. The cherry holds necessary sugars and desirable flavors that need to be infused into the coffee bean. Farmers use two primary processing methods to release these flavors from the cherry: the dry process and the wet process.

Dry Process (aka Natural Process): The cherry is left on the bean and dried naturally in the open air by sunlight on large patios, where the coffee is continually raked for even drying and mildew prevention. Once properly dried, the cherry is removed from the bean. The dry process method can be hard to control due to the coffee's vulnerability to environmental elements (rain, humidity, sun) while drying. The end result can be mixed and unpredictable. A dry processed coffee may be heavy bodied, sweet, smooth and complex.

Washed Process (aka Wet Process): The cherry is removed from the bean, but a thin, sweet, slimy layer, called mucilage, remains. The beans are placed in fermentation tanks for 12 -36 hours for flavor development, then they undergo extensive washing to remove remaining mucilage and fermentation residue. This is a more controlled method with more consistent results. A washed process coffee may taste cleaner, brighter, and fruitier.

The washed process is water intensive and is more likely to be used in growing regions with easy access to water - and by farmers with the money to build the infrastructure needed for processing. Whereas the dry process is likely to be used in growing regions with lower humidity and reliably dry, sunny periods to prevent the cherries from mildewing while drying.

Our May featured coffee is Costa Rica Montes de Oro - Washed Processed. Previously, we carried the natural processed Montes de Oro, which was heavier, even thick in body and very citrusy. By contrast the washed version is very clean, smooth with very balanced citrus notes. The same bean, processed differently has yielded extremely different results. Which is better? That's up to you to decide!

What’s the Big Deal about the Roast?

Part I: How the Roast affects the Coffee’s Flavor
Before we knew much about coffee, we’d buy black beans glistening with oil, with descriptions like, dark roast, smoky, robust flavor. This sounded pretty good because, who wants to drink a whimpy cup, right? If dark roast meant robust flavor, then it would stand to reason that a medium roast or light roast must somehow be less flavorful. Once we started learning how to roast and cup coffee however, we learned that nothing could be farther from the truth!

Simplistic comparisons have been made between roasting coffee and barbequing meat, in terms of how one’s “cooking technique” ultimately affects flavor development. In both cases, there’s a search for the perfect time/temperature relationship to create a wonderful end result. Add too much heat and/or time and the end product tastes like any burnt barbequed meat or burnt roasted coffee, instead of like the sought-after savory cut or the deliciously complex cup of coffee.

Coffees from around the world contain unique flavors trapped inside them, and it’s the roaster’s job to coax them out through the roasting process. If he or she is not paying close attention to the beans throughout the roasting process, making adjustments as needed to the heat and time, then certain flavors will not develop or will possibly be roasted out of the bean. Knowing that there are many factors such as density, size, age, and moisture content that affect how a bean roasts, a roaster will roast several batches and cup each batch to determine how to best roast each type of coffee.

Come to our public coffee cuppings, and you’ll be able to taste coffees side by side. (Cuppings are usually the third Sunday of the month at 1:30pm — get details at our website and in this newsletter.) This is where the sensory adventure begins! You will discover personal preferences, likes and dislikes, and you will begin to taste hints of citrus, fruits, wines, chocolate, spices and possibly flowers. Then, you will truly appreciate how a skilled roaster took meticulous time and care to bring those flavors out instead of roast them away. You will also notice that all of our beans are brown and oil free, not black and shiny, an indicator that the coffee was carefully roasted to bring out its individual flavor profile.

Part II: Coffee Roasting Crash Course - What a Roaster Looks, Listens and Smells for When Roasting Coffee
Techniques used for roasting coffee vary depending on the type of machinery, accompanying technology and roasting ideology/philosophy. Regardless of technique, coffee goes through a number of transformations to take it from a dense, green/grey bean to a light, puffy, brown/black, deliciously aromatic gem.

Using one’s senses, the following may be observed during the beans' metamorphosis:

I. Greenish/grey beans enter the roaster.

II. Beans heat up and change color from green, to chartreusey yellow to light brown. They smell grassy as they release moisture. One later observes steam leaving the roaster that smells like bread.

III. The roaster listens for a light popping sound (1st crack), an indication that the roasting process is in full swing. Sugars inside the beans are carmelizing, flavors are developing. Steam is turning to oily smoke.

IV. Between 1st crack and 2nd crack (a sizzling sound heard close to the end of the roasting process) one feverishly checks the color and internal temperature of the beans. This is where roasting skills really matter. Intense observation helps the roaster nudge the flavor development along through tiny heat and airflow adjustments.

V. Because the beans become exothermic (creating their own heat), once they have reached their optimum roast, they are quickly dropped from the roaster into a round cooling tray that moves them and flows cool air around them. The timing of this move is critical to prevent the beans from being roasted too darkly or being burnt.

VI. You might be surprised to find that the beans will smell grassy, bready, smoky smells during the roasting process. The lovely, intoxicating coffee aroma comes later as the beans are cool and off-gassing carbon dioxide.

To freeze, or not to freeze?

Whether or not to freeze coffee beans to retain their freshness is a frequent topic of discussion. The quick answer to this question is: Buy only what you will use within 10 days of the coffee's roast date. (The quality of the flavor really takes a dive after 10 days.) Store coffee at room temperature in an airtight, opaque container, away from heat, light, humidity or moisture (e.g., away from the dishwasher). Grind only what you will need for each brewing cycle. If you take these steps you will retain the coffee's freshness, and you won't need to worry about freezing or refrigerating the coffee.

So why not freeze the coffee? Each time you take the coffee out of the freezer to make your morning cup, a thin layer of condensation forms on the beans. After returning the coffee to the freezer, the condensation freezes, creating tiny fractures on the surface of the beans. This freeze/thaw process happens every time the coffee is removed from and returned to the freezer, and those tiny fractures get larger, allowing more moisture to seep deeper into the bean. Moisture really speeds up the staling of coffee, so this is the main reason not to freeze it.

Refrigerating coffee risks the same condensation exposure problem (minus the freezing) discussed above, as well as putting the coffee at risk of absorbing odors from other foods in the refrigerator. Mmm, tuna-onion surprise! No benefits here!

Buy it fresh, store it at room temperature. Protect it from its enemies - heat, light, moisture, oxygen. Grind it only as needed. Use it up within 10 days of its roast date. And enjoy!

Direct Trade.

Thump is most fortunate to work with a coffee roasting company (Stumptown Coffee Roasters) who searches the world for the finest coffees and farmers who treat both their land and their employees with integrity. Stumptown builds lasting relationships with these farmers, visiting them multiple times a year and paying them directly, at least double Fair Trade prices. This insures that the farmers and their workers are paid equitably and that they have the financial resources to maintain and develop their farming infrastructure.

When you see the words "Direct Trade" next to one of the coffees offered at Thump, know that Stumptown works directly with this coffee farm, paying them generously for their outstanding coffee. In turn, these farmers are paying their workers equitably and are committed to using sustainable farming methods.

Fresh is the word.

Freshness & roast dates: We receive coffee the day after it's roasted. Coffee, like wine, needs time to breathe and "open up" before it can be fully enjoyed. Most coffees need 24-48 hours to "off-gas" carbon dioxide, so we're receiving and serving it at the most flavorful period of its life.

Coffees also stale dramatically after 10 days past the roast date. All of our coffees have the roast date stamped on their bags. We don't sell coffee that's older than 10 days, so we're careful to order it frequently in small batches. We donate all coffees older than 10 days to the Bend Community Center - it's still better than typical mass-produced coffee, although it doesn't meet our thump standards.

It’s in the Grind...

So you have your freshly roasted coffee and you’re eager to get it home and brew it up. You get out your grinder, pour some beans in, press the lid for a period of time, and presto, ground coffee. When you remove the lid, you notice that some of the coffee is powdery and some of it is still a bit chunky. The lack of uniformity in the particle size of the grounds can turn a great coffee bean into a horrible cup of coffee. When brewed, the finely ground coffee will over extract flavors to create bitterness. The coarser grounds will under extract and won’t release the desirable coffee flavors. The result, a really disappointing cup of coffee!

Solution: Consider replacing your blade grinder (which actually chops instead of grinds the coffee) with a burr grinder. A burr grinder can be set to uniformly grind your coffee for the proper particle size for the brewing method you are using. (Ie. A very fine grind for espresso, or a coarse grind for French press.) Selecting the proper grind setting for your brewing method is equally as important, otherwise you will once again have either underextracted (watery) coffee from grinding the coffee too coarse, or overextracted (bitter) coffee from grinding the coffee too fine. Remember, only grind coffee as it’s needed, because it stales within minutes of being ground!

The bean.

Really, this is the story of the land where coffee is grown and the people who grow it. These are the world’s most premium green beans, bought directly from growers at a fair price, exceeding even Fair Trade Certified, which means more economic benefit stays with the local farmer and community.

The roast.

After all the care and attention given to selecting the perfect beans, the roast is where the coffee comes alive and develops its full flavor profile. Our coffees are hand roasted in small batches, each optimized for the bean, humidity and other factors. While green beans keep for extended periods, once roasted the coffee has a critical and short period of peak freshness and flavor. Our beans are delivered to us and sold to you during a 10-day freshness window.

The cup.

In the end, it’s all about what ends up in the cup. We use only the highest quality commercial coffee preparation equipment, operated by highly skilled, highly trained baristi. Slurping is encouraged.

Thump is proud to serve Stumptown Coffee, because Stumptown shares our passion for providing the freshest, most unique coffees, roasted by hand in small batches and enjoyed at their peak. From stump to thump to you. Drink up!