Unfortunately, making delicious coffee is this simple — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00If you have never really paid much
2. 0:01attention to coffee, I can help you make
3. 0:03your brews a lot better uh very fast.
4. 0:06[music]
5. 0:07And it has almost nothing to do with the
6. 0:09advice that you'll hear from people who
7. 0:11compete at the highest levels of coffee.
8. 0:14And actually, some of that advice will
9. 0:16make your coffee [music] worse. And let
10. 0:18me explain why. So, I'm in the lucky
11. 0:21position that I know a lot of people who
12. 0:23have nothing to do with coffee. And
13. 0:26frankly, they don't even care much about
14. 0:28it. But then when they find out that I
15. 0:31have this YouTube channel here, they
16. 0:33start asking me some questions and
17. 0:34sometimes it's like I wake up something
18. 0:36in them and then they want to go a bit
19. 0:38deeper in this hobby. And one of those
20. 0:40guys is really nice senior guy from my
21. 0:43gym. He's in his 70s and I think he's
22. 0:46having a bit of a coffee renaissance. So
23. 0:49he started watching coffee videos here
24. 0:51on YouTube after he found out about my
25. 0:52channel. And last time I was talking to
26. 0:54him, I suggested that maybe it was a
27. 0:56good idea to buy a Hario Switch. It's a
28. 0:58good solid brewer, very easy to get good
29. 1:02results with. Maybe he could also pick
30. 1:04up a gooseseneck kettle with a P
31. 1:07temperature control just to be able to
32. 1:09control that part a little bit more. But
33. 1:11then next time I saw him, he came back
34. 1:14to me with a piece of advice that he had
35. 1:17heard from someone who plays well at the
36. 1:19World Brewers Cup. And that advice is a
37. 1:22little bit uh crazy and controversial.
38. 1:24and that is to throw out uh parts of
39. 1:27your first extracted brew. So, let's say
40. 1:30you take the first 10 grams of your
41. 1:33bloom and then throw it out. And I have
42. 1:35to admit, I was a little bit shocked
43. 1:37when I heard this. Not because this
44. 1:39advice is wrong. It's actually very
45. 1:41interesting advice. And I do have a
46. 1:43video here on the channel about the
47. 1:46exactly same thing. I'll put a link to
48. 1:48that video down in the description in
49. 1:50case you're curious. I just frame it
50. 1:52more as a technique that can be quite
51. 1:54useful for funky anorobic natural
52. 1:57coffees. So here we have a guy who's
53. 1:59just starting to kind of scratch the
54. 2:01surface of this hobby. And I would say
55. 2:04probably the last thing he should worry
56. 2:08about is discarding uh the first part of
57. 2:10the brew. Then he told me something else
58. 2:13that he's also been researching a
59. 2:15brewer. Now it's not the how you switch
60. 2:17anymore. Instead, it was one of those
61. 2:19niche micro brand competition brewers
62. 2:22that there are so many of. And at this
63. 2:24point, I was getting a little bit
64. 2:26worried that maybe he was being, you
65. 2:28know, almost radicalized, uh, a bit
66. 2:31prematurely because here's the thing,
67. 2:33making coffee can be very advanced, very
68. 2:36geeky, super crazy, but it can also be
69. 2:39relatively simple if you just do a few
70. 2:41basic things that are the foundation for
71. 2:44everything else. On the other hand, if
72. 2:46you skip those basics, it becomes quite
73. 2:48difficult and I think no gear or
74. 2:50technique is really going to save you.
75. 2:53So, let me just tell you what actually
76. 2:55matters. So, first you need to buy good
77. 2:57coffee. You can't really skip that part
78. 2:59and it needs to be relatively fresh.
79. 3:01Let's say roasted somewhere between 10
80. 3:04and 30 days ago. That 20day window is
81. 3:07usually where the quality is. Second,
82. 3:10you also need a decent grinder. Uh, I
83. 3:12have a ton of information about those.
84. 3:15Uh, if you want to see some of my
85. 3:16favorites, then I'll link them down
86. 3:18below. Third, you need good water. Not
87. 3:21too hard, not too soft, somewhere in the
88. 3:23middle. If you're not exactly sure what
89. 3:25that is, then get a TDS meter. And if
90. 3:27you measure something around 60 to 80
91. 3:29ppm, that's probably a good place to be.
92. 3:31The fourth thing you need is to hit a
93. 3:34reasonable extraction and a reasonable
94. 3:36strength in the cup. And that part is
95. 3:38actually much easier than it sounds
96. 3:40because if you're brewing at the same
97. 3:41ratio, let's say 1:14 or 1:15 or even
98. 3:451:6, then it's just about adjusting the
99. 3:48grind size and then you will get a kind
100. 3:50of similar result every time. Uh you can
101. 3:53use a French press, an arrow press. The
102. 3:55brewer is actually not that important
103. 3:57here. But if you're just doing those
104. 3:58four things, I promise you your coffee
105. 4:00is going to be incredibly enjoyable and
106. 4:02you're already ahead of most people out
107. 4:05there. And here's one little thing I
108. 4:07should probably add, and that is if
109. 4:08you're just starting out, it might be
110. 4:09better uh getting a medium roast rather
111. 4:12than one of those fancy modern light
112. 4:14roasts. They can really be amazing, but
113. 4:17it might not actually be your idea of
114. 4:19what great coffee tastes like at this
115. 4:22stage in your journey. So, if you like
116. 4:24those classic uh flavors of nut and
117. 4:27chocolate, you just buy a coffee that's
118. 4:29kind of like roasted for it and chosen
119. 4:31for that specific style and then you
120. 4:33brew it with these fundamentals and then
121. 4:35it's going to be very tasty. On the
122. 4:38other hand, if you're not doing all
123. 4:39these kind of basic things I just
124. 4:41mentioned, you shouldn't really be
125. 4:42paying attention to other coffee tips.
126. 4:45It doesn't really matter how clever or
127. 4:47interesting or cool those tips are.
128. 4:50chances are it won't really have any
129. 4:51noticeable impact on your cup because
130. 4:54something much bigger upstream is
131. 4:56already dominating the result. I think
132. 4:58an example we can all understand is
133. 4:59health and fitness. If someone tells you
134. 5:01they want to be healthy or get in shape
135. 5:03but they don't do any exercise uh and
136. 5:06their diet is kind of like all over the
137. 5:08place. Maybe their plan is to get saved
138. 5:10by some new health hack like peptides or
139. 5:13creatine. It's really easy to see the
140. 5:15problem. So they're working on the
141. 5:17margins before they've built anything
142. 5:19for the margins to matter to. But then
143. 5:21if we take a professional athlete, for
144. 5:24them the electrolytes after training
145. 5:26probably do matter. The creatine
146. 5:28probably does help. And something like
147. 5:30the protein is also something you should
148. 5:32be thinking about. And that's not
149. 5:34because those things are suddenly more
150. 5:35powerful. It's because that athlete is
151. 5:38competing against other people who have
152. 5:40already optimized everything else. So
153. 5:42when the basics are equal across the
154. 5:44field, the small things are the only
155. 5:46things left. So it's the same in coffee.
156. 5:48When you look at something like the
157. 5:50World Barista Championship or the World
158. 5:51Brewers Cup, those competitors are up
159. 5:54against people who have all the
160. 5:55fundamentals locked down. So to kind of
161. 5:58separate yourself uh and stand out, you
162. 6:00have to go very deep on something very
163. 6:02specific. And in that context, it does
164. 6:05work. or there is actually also one
165. 6:07reading of it uh that if you ask me is
166. 6:11probably also what's going on and that
167. 6:12is that in these competitions they also
168. 6:15reward storytelling and novelty. So if
169. 6:18you just take one small detail and
170. 6:20magnify how important it is you also
171. 6:22kind of build up an aura being a little
172. 6:25bit of an innovator someone who's
173. 6:26pushing boundaries and that will reflect
174. 6:29well on your placing and maybe also in
175. 6:31your career in the industry afterwards.
176. 6:34So, if you just uh repeat these boring
177. 6:36basics here I've just been talking
178. 6:38about, that's not really going to make a
179. 6:40huge impact because most people already
180. 6:42know this. So, when that ultra specific
181. 6:44advice reaches my friend at the gym,
182. 6:47it's traveled a very long way from the
183. 6:49context it was built for. Nobody is
184. 6:52misleading him. He's just not the right
185. 6:54audience. And there is a lot of
186. 6:56innovation in coffee right now. A lot of
187. 6:58it is very interesting, but very little
188. 7:01of it really changes the fundamentals.
189. 7:03And what took me uh many years to figure
190. 7:06out mostly by doing it in the slow way
191. 7:08trial and error. All that knowledge is
192. 7:11available for you today. You can digest
193. 7:13it in one afternoon. So when I got into
194. 7:15coffee, water was not understood at all.
195. 7:18Grinders were bad and expensive. And now
196. 7:21it's all very accessible. And that is
197. 7:23actually something that has changed over
198. 7:25the last 10 years. So here's what I'll
199. 7:27do. I'll put a video here about water
200. 7:30and a video here about a brewing method
201. 7:32that will get you about 90% of the way.
202. 7:34It's easy and it might be all you need.
203. 7:37So, get a decent grinder, buy fresh
204. 7:39beans, lock in the ratio and uh then you
205. 7:42have most of it right. So, then come
206. 7:44back after a bit of time and all the fun
207. 7:46stuff and coffee still going to be there
208. 7:48for you and it might actually make a
209. 7:51much bigger impact when you have those
210. 7:53fundamentals down.