Here are a couple of Newsletters from George Howell… Considered by many to be: “The Godfather of coffee knowledge”.
George Howell has done much for the specialty coffee industry. He is attributed with being instramental in helping the Cofee farmers get better prices for their coffee and helping to standardize the cupping process. and “The Cup of Excellence” program.
My wife bought me a sampler pack of five 4 oz. packages of roast coffee for Christmas. After tasting the first package (Boa Vista from Brazil), I realize that I am not even coming close to roasting good coffee.
I have ordered from George before. primarily Geshas and others that I wanted to try. I have never been disappointed.
Newsletter Issue #5
Roast dates and the right time to brew
November 12, 2018
Back in the 1980s, and even 1990’s, the answer to “when is the right time to brew?” seemed simple: immediately after roast! Indeed, my Coffee Connection was the first in the US to post roast dates on our barrels (we were scooping back then!) and on our bags. Many of our customers wanted to buy our coffee roasted the previous day and no later. Then the one-way valve bag arrived, becoming common practice in the 1990s. It allowed us to preserve complete freshness longer, although many of our very well-trained customers had lingering doubts….
The new millennium brought us to new levels of understanding, as Third Wave lighter roast, single farm coffees entered the market. In just a few years there were farmer quality competitions in many countries of origin. Refining the craft of brewing the best cups of coffee became a passion wherever third wave cafes opened, giving rise to regional, national and world title barista and brewer competitions. Precision instruments were developed to measure proper extraction ratios and strength, giving rise to superior results at cafes and at home; we are NOT talking about the k-cup!
These days, the international barista consensus for brewing the “best-a-coffee-can-be” is for that coffee to have rested for about a week, when sealed in one-way valve bags. Otherwise the intense release of carbon dioxide from freshly ground beans interferes with proper flavor-extraction. Coffee stays at peak in one-way sealed bags for about three weeks after roasting, with gradual degradation after that. At three months degassing is complete and quality falls off a cliff.
Once you open a bag of fresh beans, reseal and freeze the remaining beans immediately! For more on this, see Issue No. 2
– George Howell
Newsletter Issue #2
June 28, 2018
Freezing Roasted Coffee
It is striking how many specialty coffee companies recommend NOT freezing your roasted coffee. They are wrong.
I have found that just one day after I have opened a bag of coffee, thereby exposing it to oxygen, it has lost much of its dimensionality; it is a shadow of that first glorious day – assuming it was a great coffee, perfectly roasted to begin with!
You cannot simply put it in a container and remove the oxygen as if it were a wine: carbon dioxide pours out of fresh coffee, eliminating any sealed vacuum you may have started with. Keeping it cool and dry does nothing to stop the already oxygen-contaminated coffee from becoming zombified. But take a thick zip-lock bag, place the beans in it, squeeze most of the air out, and freeze it on the spot and you stop all transactions cold. Our coffee bags already have a zip lock; there is no need to transfer.
Next day: grind the coffee right away, the colder the better! The colder the beans are, the more brittle they are, and the more evenly they grind. That’s what the 2017 USA Barista Champion did with his espresso beans! His professional jurors were more than convinced.
Brew immediately after; no need to wait. All our single-pour coffees are kept frozen at our café in Downtown Crossing. If you want some of your roasted coffee to be around for over a couple of weeks, vacuum the coffee in a pouch and freeze it. Enjoy!
– George Howell