COFFEE 101: YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Coffee 101: Coffee Questions Answered

Here at Bean Shot Sherborne, one of the regular highlights of our daily grind (pardon the pun) is the opportunity to talk to our customers about our shared passion, coffee. It’s always a pleasure to introduce our latest blend, describe our method or elaborate on the bean to cup process involved in producing our Bloody Good Coffee. More often than not, as we measure, grind, steam, pour and serve, we are asked for advice about how to recreate the in-store experience at home. Well, unlike the code of silence adopted by the mafia, the magic circle and the Man City training ground, we are more than happy to pull back the curtain and let you in on some of the secrets of our trade.  

To get us started, here are our considered responses to our most frequently asked questions. Imagine it as an ‘overheard in Bean Shot’ column or a consensual eavesdropping exercise. You’ll get no BS from us here at Bean Shot!    

Lovely Customer: What coffee is the best? 

Bean Shot: Let’s start with an easy one, shall we? (*Eye roll to suggest that this is, in fact, not easy at all)  

So, I like spicy food, you might not. I prefer red to white wine, Star Wars to Star Trek, love Marmite but can’t stand pickled onion Monster Munch. It’s not really a question of which is best but more about personal taste and preference; Thankfully, the process of finding out which type of coffee hits the right spot for you is a constantly rewarding journey of discovery. It can take a few samples to find out what works for you and what doesn’t: Some coffees can be sweet, some bitter; Some can be fruity, others can be chocolatey. It really does take a few drinks to figure out which you prefer. As a suggestion, go for what’s being served in store that day but really savour it and consider the flavours with each sip. If you like something about it, try and verbalise it. Talk to the barista working that day about what you experienced and ask for a suggestion on what to go for next. Exploring what you like in coffee can be a lot of fun. Enjoy the process and the ensuing conversations. 

Lovely Customer: Should I store coffee in the fridge or freezer? 

Bean Shot: No and no...with a small geeky exception. During the roasting process we essentially remove moisture from the coffee bean (I’ll do a blog post on the roasting process soon); all the thirsty little coffee beans (or granules, if we’ve ground it) want to do is get that moisture back. Fridges and freezers can be very moist environments, especially when frozen coffee defrosts and condensation forms, so the coffee will search out and absorb the moisture found in there (along with any smells and flavours), which could degrade or taint your next cup of coffee; care for a camembert coffee anyone? There is an argument for freezing small amounts of coffee to preserve flavour for a longer period of time, but this only works if you portion out single doses of coffee and use a vacuum sealer to preserve individual doses. These are then only taken out of the freezer one dose at a time and used from frozen. So..no,not entirely practical on a commercial or domestic level. The best thing to do is to keep your coffee it in the bag you've bought it in; our bags have specially placed tin ties which can be used to fold around the bag itself, sealing it shut. Yes, you can put it into an airtight storage vessel - there are many companies desperate to persuade you to spend upwards of £30 on a fancy countertop capsule -but this is only necessary if the coffee itself will be stored for more than a couple of weeks, which, given the moreish quality of our coffee, seems highly unlikely.  

Lovely Customer: Should I buy a bulk amount of coffee? 

Bean Shot: You can, depending on the amount your household/office gets through (we now offer 1kg bags of all our coffees!), but coffee is a food product and, as such, degrades over time. We have a mantra at Bean Shot: “Buy small, buy often (like now!) and know when it’s roasted”. Sticking to these 3 principles will ensure the best flavours will always be present in the cup. Knowing when a coffee was roasted is Key as the roasting date is the date from which your coffee starts to lose its flavour. Once roasted you have a window of 6-8 weeks where it’s at its best (Oddly too, coffee tastes at its best 1 week after roasting, I’ll cover the ‘natural degassing of coffee’ in another blog post). You can drink coffee that’s a year old or even more, but it won't taste very nice! Very old coffee tastes wooden, flat and dull. It's lost all its natural flavours and you’re left with the remaining flavour of the material roasted product (think fresh spices bought recently compared to your grandparents spice rack that’s not been touched in years!). 

Knowing when coffee was roasted and you’ll be happy drinking fresh coffee. - A general note here too, if a coffee only has a ‘use by’ date rather than a ‘roasted on’ date, you can guestimate that it was roasted the year prior to the use by date. Your call on the purchase, personally, wouldn’t risk it! 

Lovely Customer: Customer: Should I buy beans or ground coffee? 

Bean Shot: Easy! If you have a grinder - sorry, I’ll actually preface that, if you have a burr grinder, then buy beans. If you don't have a grinder, or if you have a blade grinder or a 'spice mill’, let us grind it for you. I can cover that deeper in another post, but for now, spice grinders cut coffee randomly creating lots of different granule sizes, burr grinders are much more uniform which produces a more tasty coffee...seriously, it makes a difference!  

We’ll ask which brew method you intend to use (AeroPress, cafetiere, espresso machine, pour-over etc) so we can ensure the best grind size for your preference. Again, more on this topic in a future article. 

Lovely Customer: What’s the best way to brew coffee at home? 

Bean Shot: Now that really is big topic of conversation, worthy of a much longer and more detailed response. Ultimately, it’s personal choice (another kop-out, I know); we can advise depending on the coffee, but at the end of the day it is your decision and entirely based on the style of coffee you want to make and enjoy. However, our recommendation is begin by following a simple recipe... yes, recipe!  

Customers sometimes get shocked when we mention using recipes, so I always give an analogy of baking a cake. When baking a cake, you don't just throw in any old amounts of sugar, butter, flour, milk and eggs, mix it up and throw it in the oven at whatever temperature and for a random amount of time and expect it to taste good. you use a recipe, you weigh everything out, you time how long it goes in the oven for. Coffee is no different. 

If you make your coffee using a recipe, then the coffee will taste exactly the same, every single time. By being precise it becomes repeatable and consistent, something we continually strive for in the shop. (you might have noticed we weigh the amount of coffee in and out of the espresso machine) 

As an example, when making espresso a recipe could be: 18g of coffee ground for espresso, that makes 36g of espresso, and that needs to take 30 seconds. 

18g in, 36g out in 30 seconds - that's a recipe. It’s also easily communicated between baristas, roasters and consumers. 

For home coffee brewing, you can do exactly the same. We have brew recipes for every brew method (which I will cover in the next few blog posts) to get the best flavour out of your coffee. The one thing you will need is a set of digital kitchen scales (click here), other than that, just your normal brewing device. 

Why do we use a recipe? It ensures that if there are any flavour changes, it’s the coffee that’s changing the flavour and not the way you've brewed it. It’s all too easy to add more or less ground coffee, use more or less brewing water, or let the coffee steep for different times. But by using a recipe, everything stays the same, every time. As such, when you do buy a different coffee (or the Taster pack that has different coffees) then the differences you taste between coffees is the coffee itself and not the way you brewed it. 

Following the above suggestions will vastly improve your coffee experience at home, and the best bit about it, it costs nothing, or at least very little (some scales…), and ensures you will always have great tasting coffee. 

I do hope that the answers above have been useful to you. We do have an FAQ section for some other generic questions and answers. Alternatively, just ask us! Either when you visit us in the Sherborne shop, contact us here or shoot us a DM on the socials. Our main goal is to be as approachable as possible. No question is a silly question, so never feel bad for asking and we’ll never ‘talk down’ to anyone who’s interested enough to contact us. Sometimes we can answer straight away, other times we will need to do some research but, one way or another, we’ll find you the answer you want. 

Thanks for reading and keep in touch as you continue on your coffee journey, and if you haven’t already, check out the previous blog posts.