By WKSHOP Academy Training Manager Melita Ferarro.
For cafe owners and baristas there is an art and science to delivering consistently great coffee that goes much deeper than grind, steam and pour.
For many, drinking coffee is part of their daily routine that gets them going every morning, or it’s their way of taking a moment to themselves on a jam-packed day.
They may hear the grinder going when they step into your cafe, see you steaming a jug, and then, ‘voila!’: their coffee lands in their hands and you’ve fulfilled another coffee order.
Making a coffee, in some ways, is like baking a cake. Just as you follow a recipe when baking, we also follow a recipe when making a coffee. A recipe helps to ensure the correct flavour profile is met, and that it’s met every time.
When baking a cake, if you change the quantity of ingredients, the temperature on the oven or bake for a different amount of time, chances are you’re going to end up with a different result. The same goes for making a coffee.
Before determining the recipe, it’s important you start with quality ingredients. At WKSHOP, our Head Roaster, Paul Golding, works with cafe chains and franchises to create a coffee blend that fits their preferred taste profile and key requirements. They’re looking for a blend that allows baristas consistently to deliver an excellent coffee and one that their customers will enjoy, so our team are skilled and dedicated in sourcing quality coffee from around the world to develop blends that meet these requirements.
With each blend developed, a recipe is needed so that baristas can produce the best flavour in each cup. When we say ‘recipe’, we’re referring to the amount of ground coffee and water and the time in which these two ingredients are in contact with each other – resulting in your extraction. Another term for this recipe is our dose-to-yield ratio.
When making coffee, many variables are in play. By following a set recipe and using tools such as digital scales, we work towards removing a number of these variables. Your main variable to monitor is the grind size, which can be adjusted when needed throughout service.
Read the full column from WKSHOP in the July/August issue of Convenience World.
