C is for Christmas and....

COFFEE!! After two years in Melbourne we decided that it was time to get serious about the coffee culture and learn more about the history and making of our favorite bean-based drink. William Angliss provided the location, the beans, the machines and our knowledgeable leader Melissa. We began with Melissa showing us how to make a good latte, and then on to the learning with a discussion on the growing and harvesting of coffee beans. Our first hands-on activity was in taking 'greens' from various places around the world and roasting them ourselves. We now have another fabulous use for old air-popcorn poppers! Once we had the right roast, we got to experiment with the coarseness of the grind and its influence on the brewed coffee. It was really interesting that coffee is beginning to go down a similar sensory descriptive road to wine - lots of comments about the aroma and different tastes of the coffees. What was really amazing was that you could actually tell the difference between a 100% Papua New Guinea (PNG) coffee versus a 100% Ethiopian - both were good, but the PNG was much more suited to plunger coffee and the Ethiopian more for machine-made espresso. Finally, it was time to try our hands at the big machines. We both started on a 'domestic' machine which proved a bit difficult but given time and practice it would have produced a decent cup. Josh just has to remember that first you have to turn off the steam wand and THEN you pull it out of the milk that you are heating - glad it wasn't our kitchen to clean up afterwards! We moved on to a 'commercial' espresso machine, which sped up the entire process and was super-duper easy to get going but also more demanding of the preparation and control. The main difference between a lower-end machine (ie 'domestic') versus the high-end seems to be the way it heats and stores water/steam and that is really about it. Levers, knobs, guages and such don't seem to be that important but if you can brew your coffee at the same time that you're heating up the milk it is a really big plus and a big increase in the price tag. By the end of class we had both made a decent cup that we could drink ourselves and had learned a lot more about coffee which will help us appreciate more in years to come as well. We're thinking of going back to take the next class which is much more about working and maintaining the machines, perhaps in the new year sometime. In the meantime, we would highly recommend the Angliss 'Coffee@Home' course to anyone interested in learning how to make and identify a good coffee, whether it is at a cafe or in your own kitchen.