Aside – the three rules of good coffee

I’ll admit, I’m not a barista. Needless to say working in IT and coming from Australia I have a healthy respect for Good Coffee, and it occurred to me the other day there’s 3 simple rules to follow in order to have good, proper coffee:

1. Does not have sugar in it.
2. Is not measured by the gallon.
3. Comes fresh from the bean.

The first rule is probably the most important – if you need to add sugar to the coffee (e.g., because it tastes bitter), then you’ve got bad coffee, or at least substandard coffee. The flavour of coffee should stand on its own, without any need for sugar based products. If you have to add some syrup or sugar to it, then you should look elsewhere for better tasting coffee.

The next rule is something inherently understood by anyone who has had the pleasure of either a macchiato or a ristretto. Usually whenever I’ve had a “big” coffee – e.g., anything bigger than a long-black in size, it’s typically diluted with either a lot of hot water or a lot of hot milk – and then usually with a whole lot of sugar as well. Good coffee is not about whether you get a big volume of liquid for the money you pay, but whether you get a good quality of liquid for the money you pay. To paraphrase Bill Bryson – I’d rather pay $8 AU for a good espresso than $2 AU for a half-litre monstrosity that tastes about as strong and solid as mop-water.

The final rule is about freshness. Don’t get me started on instant coffee, though I’ll at least grant that it’s portable, and thus fulfills some use in extreme circumstances. Otherwise though, this rule means: don’t buy pre-ground, and only grind when you’re about to use.

A final rule that should be obvious in what I’ve stated above – drip filter does not constitute coffee. If it doesn’t come out of a real honest to goodness espresso machine, it’s broken before it even hits the cup.

Does all this make me a coffee snob? Probably yes, but for good reasons.