Most coffee roasters would agree that extreme focus is a fundamental part of the job spec.
This also applies to coffee in general, from growing the crop right through to brewing it. Almost every coffee conversation has the potential to lead you down some weird and wonderful rabbit holes. This is why staying focused on one particular element is so damn difficult.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining, it certainly makes for a more exciting day.
I met with a group of academics yesterday from our local University who are interested in looking at alternative fuel sources for the food industry. The session was supposed to last one hour. It ended up being three hours long and the range of topics discussed moved from thermal management and volatile organic compound analysis right through to extraction theory. I couldn’t quite believe what I was witnessing. What started out as a routine meeting with some extremely nice, educated dudes, who had absolutely no idea how interested they were in coffee, to three hours later discussing the potential funding streams for multiple trial experiments on a range of coffee-related topics.
This is why I love coffee but also why focus is lacking. I am interested in exploring everything.
Come to think of it. In our production QC cupping, we started discussing the roaster’s favourite subject the Maillard reaction. The Maillard reaction is a chemical reaction that happens when certain food groups are exposed to heat. Amino acids and reducing sugars start to react at specific temperatures leading to the browning of coffee and the development of new flavour and aroma compounds. This is one of the many reasons that coffee is extremely aromatic when ground.
We were trialling a new coffee profile to see if more time under heat would produce more complexity and a heavier-bodied cup when Jamiel brought up (Modulating the flavour profile of coffee). This is a useful book written by Rob Hoos, who is also a coffee roaster. I had forgotten Jamiel had been studying this book but he made a good point about the Maillard reaction and the generation of coffee Melanoidins. Doing a little further research, Melanoidins are high molecular weight compounds that are formed as a consequence of the Maillard reaction, contributing to flavour development but also the texture of coffee, meaning the more time spent in the Maillard reaction the more Melanoidins are created producing a higher viscosity and thicker mouth feel.
This played out on the cupping table as the coffee that had spent longer in the roaster produced a heavier mouthfeel than the shorter roast. This extended roast did sacrifice some of the coffee’s acidity but I was just chuffed we were having these conversations and learning from our experiments. Plus I thought the longer roast had an extra layer of complexity that I found somewhat to be my preference.
Oh, the joys.
Cheers
Burts