Brewing Guidelines

Coffee is another form of information storage. Locked inside coffee beans is a record of the weather, the land, the trees, and the people’s efforts that produced it. For that information - the flavor, aroma, and taste of that coffee - to be intelligible and enjoyable, it has to be brewed correctly. As coffee professionals, we are certainly familiar with the basics of brewing, but when it comes to decaf, it’s worth reviewing. Decaffeinated coffees have been through a lot before the actual brewing process, and therefore need the best treatment possible to maximize their flavor and aroma - the only reason, after all, that decaf drinkers drink coffee to begin with! That said, freshness, grinding and water are key elements to a great home-brewed cup of (especially decaffeinated) coffee.

Freshness:

If coffee isn’t stored properly, it will not matter if it is roasted to perfection from the best green coffee and brewed perfectly, it will end up tasting awful. How fast a coffee stales depends on the type of coffee it is, how it was handled, stored, and packaged after roasting, and how it is handled after purchase. This is very important with decaf coffees, as we believe they stale a little more quickly.

Coffee should be stored at home in airtight glass or glazed ceramic containers (not plastic or metal) which won’t absorb flavors and can be cleaned between use. If the coffee isn’t going to be used within two weeks, freeze the portion not used (although the flavor will never remain as fresh). It is better to sell smaller amounts of fresh coffee, encouraging your customers to visit your store more frequently.

Grinding:

The fineness of the grind and the fineness of the filter should be paired so that the grinds stay in the filter basket and the flavor goes into the coffee. The coffee shouldn’t be ground so fine so that it either goes into the coffee (as it might with a metal mesh filter) or that it clogs the filter and extends the brewing time (as fine grinds will do with a paper filter).

Those inexpensive rotary blade grinders will not produce an even grind. (The blades inevitably pulverize a small amount of coffee into a powder suitable for making Turkish coffee, and leave other grounds, or even whole beans, almost untouched.) When using one of these grinders, it helps to grasp the body and top of the grinder with both hands and sharply shake it while continuing to grind. This serves to circulate the beans and grounds in the grinding chamber, creating a somewhat more even grind.

Burr grinders produce an adjustable, even grind and lead to brewed coffee that is much more evenly extracted. A good burr grinder will cost much more than an inexpensive rotary grinder, with the best ones running into hundreds of dollars. But, for a devoted home-brewer of fine coffees, this is a good, recommended investment.

Water:

The point is often made that since brewed coffee is more than 97% water, water is extremely important. In many cases, tap water is actually as good as, or better, than filtered, purified, or bottled water. The problem is that many tap waters often contain components that noticeably intrude on the flavor of coffee. Often, a simple charcoal filter is the best solution for this type of problem. Don’t assume that the more expensive the filter or purification system, the better. Reverse osmosis filters, for example, can strip water of too many minerals, causing it, and coffee, to taste flat. Additionally, water-softening systems can add excess salinity to water, which will also dull the taste of coffee. The rule of thumb: Water that is good enough to drink by itself will probably make fine coffee; it is wise to recommend good bottled water otherwise.

Brewing:

Brewing should not harm the flavor components as it extracts them, and it should extract as few undesirable components as possible. To accomplish this, the brewing of regular coffee should occur over a period of four to six minutes and the water should be 195° F and the ratio of coffee to water should be the equivalent of four ounces of coffee to 64 ounces of water. We recommend using at least 20% more coffee, in the case of decaf. We also believe that while some brewing guidelines may go as high as 195 to 205° F, decafs need to be brewed in the lower end of that range and in closer to four minutes for optimal flavor.

 Tips on how to roast decaffeinated coffee