Feb 07th 2009: Singapore Barista Championship

Kind of the short notice, we found the info about Singpore 2009 Barista Championship. This is the first Championship for us. Although according to some people this Barista championship is smaller than usual one, but for us it quite amazing to see so many coffee lover come and 

attending this event with enthuastic.

This Singapore 2009 Barista actually is to compete between all Barista in Singapore and to send the championship to Atlanta for International 2009 Barista Championship.

This event held on Feb 5th - Feb 7th. But we only manage to attend on the last day for the last competition and the winner announcement.

There is also a competition between the Barista leader "boss" and the Barista competition attendee "student".

The competition happen really tense and also fast. They can produce 40+ cups within 10mins. and also with arts (picture below). 

From this Barista, we also taste the final result from the "boss" and "student", cappucino. Happen to have it score, we as the amateur coffee taster, and differentiate clearly which cappucino is better. 

The cappucino from "boss" is really amazing, the coffee taste really cut thru the milk and this is a really good taste of the coffee since we still can taste the coffee.

In the other hand, coffee from "student" also nice, and the cappucino really taste good, but compare to the "boss", it was not as tastefull.

From this Barista competition, we found out that with the same coffee, same type of grinder and same level of grind type, using the same espresso machine and also same brand of milk, the taste can be very different depends on the Barista who makes the coffee. This all because of the skill of the Barista.

Barista is not only a coffee maker, but a skillfull job. 

BRAVO!!!!

Feb 06th 2009: Our 2nd cupping

Our 2nd cupping on Feb 6th 2009 was done with product from the local roasters Koffie Fabriek Aroma Bandung and Pontianak Kopi. The coffees that we tasted were from 4 regions in Indonesia, mostly single origin and one blend.

Here is what we discovered;

1. Koffie Aroma - Toraja (Pure Arabica)

Fragrance: Woody, Smoky

Aroma: Earthy, Woody

Acidity: No acidity

Body: Full Body

Flavor: Smoky earthy flavor. However, less interesting than its Aceh cousin

2. Koffie Aroma - Aceh (Pure Arabica)

Fragrance: Smoky, Lemony, Earthy

Aroma: Earthy, Lemony, Citrus

Acidity: Mild

Body: Medium to Full

Flavor: Citrus and earthy flavor that shows the Sumatran heritage

3. Kopi Pontianak

Fragrance: Chocolatie, Woody

Aroma: Woody, Smooky

Acidity: Mild, low

Body: Less Body

Flavor: Bitter but one of authentic local thick coffees which goes well with lots of sugar

4. Koffie Aroma - Robusta blend (Java/Sumatra)
Fragrance: Herbal
Aroma: Smoky but less aromatic
Acidity: No acidity
Body: Medium to Full
Flavor: Bitter and strong cup

Coffee tip of the day:

Each region has its own charecterics which make it unique. It is also why each region has die hard fanatic where what their taste buds have been accustomed with certain flavor. How can you be an unbiased, decerning coffee drinker? Well... spend some time cupping yourself to taste the difference! You might be pleasantly surprised with what you find... :)

Jan 13-14th 2009: Barista Training

After we are back from Bali and also doing our first roasting, the interest of coffee in us extremely getting stronger and stronger. After turning from coffee house to coffee house, from Starbuck to Gloria Jeans, from Highlander to TCC, we decided to get know more about the coffee and how to make a good coffee. The only source for this idea will be the training. We hooked on 1 Barista training centre in Singapore, and decided to register.

We are glad that we took this Barista course, because as a amateur about coffee, we did learn alot from this training. It was 2 days training which 4hrs each day. We done this training on weekday after work hour.
First day, we were taught about the basic knowledge about coffee and also the history about the coffee around the world. After all the theory, we bump to the espresso making with its history.

It is a complete step by step of making a good espresso. And we learn that making espresso is not just making a good coffee. It include art, precission and passion which will determined the taste of your coffee.

The espresso making starts as learning how to precisely grind your espresso. Best espresso should take around 25-30 sec to brew 1 shot of espresso (30ml). To make this happen, the coffee grinding part is very important, because if the grind is too fine, then it will take longer to brew 30ml and it will taste awfully bitter. In the other hand if to coarse, then the brewwing will way too fast and makes the result tasteless. So grinding part also take a good part on making a good espresso.








On this training we have to trial and error to get familiar with the espresso machine and learn how to texture the milk in the way t create a good espresso, capucino or cafe latte.
It was not easy to make a good espresso, but all we have to do is learn, try and re-try. Practise make perfect.





























At the end of the practice, there is a test/exam for us to get the good Espresso, Cafe Latte and Cappucino, which is official our very first piece of coffee. The point that they counted not only the result, but it also included the cleanliness, the sequence, and the correct way to make a great coffee.


After the exam, we have another agenda on the training, which teach us how to do the coffee tasting. We are prepared using 3 different single origin coffee which will help us to differentiate on each characteristic of the each single origin coffee. The single origin coffee bean we are using are Brazil Santos, Ethiopia, and Sumatra Mandheling.
Based on our taste, 3 of us at the end likes Ethiopia and 1 of us likes Brazil.

Do you need to know on our tasting result?

Jan 10th 2009: Coffee Roasting Experience

This is our first experience on roasting, and since we dont have the proper coffee roaster, we just following the amateur guide to roast the coffee using frying pan. We believe we will end up with the modern and proper coffee roaster in the near future.
Before the roasting process begin, we preparing some stuff that we will need.


1. Frying pan


2. Gas


3. Stir-stick


4. And the most important the guide book on when the roasting should be stop.



We pour half of the picked green bean into the frying pan and start the roasting process. As per the guidance the bean need to be stirred all the time to get all bean roasted equally. If using the modern roaster, there s the drum which will keep rolling to make sure all the bean got heated and roasted equally.







After 14 minutes stirring, then it came the first crack and we were very happy and excited about it because that's mean we are doing the correct way.
The beans began to turn light brown color as it start the first crack.
And we can see the chaff begin to separated from its bean.
The smell of the coffee began to filled the kitchen area, and it was really smell good.



On the next 10 minutes stirring, the second crack begin to sounding and the color of the bean turning more and more brownish color, and some of them were turned to black which we think it over roasted. Because using the fying pan, we can not make the equalization on roasting the bean. The stage of the roasting that we were targeting was the full city to french roast.
The smell begun to turn stronger and start the smokey smell, the coffee smell didnt as strong as before, and the smoke begun to be seen and filled the kitchen.
After the second crack sounded, we keep stirring for next 5 minutes before we turn off the gas.
After we finish the roasting, it time to get rid off the chaff from the frying pan. And then we use the media to putthe roasted beans.













After the roasting, here come the grinding process for coffee tasting. We grind the roasted coffee using th norm coffee grinder as coarse grind for the tasting.
And as after grinding we brew it using the boiled water (around 80 deg C).
After brewing we were using the drip filter.

The rest of the green bean and roasted beans we kept it on the air-tight container.


















It was the very fine and excited day for us to have the first cup of our very own coffee... Even it was not the best coffee, but we really appreciate the effort of each of us did, and the coffee taste good. Can compare with Starbuck Daily Brew... hahahha....
Great.....
See you in the next article. =)

Happy coffeing...

Jan 10th, 2009: Hand Picking Coffee

Just a week after we return to Singapore from Bali, we are very excited with the bean that we bought and with the guide from the book, we begin to work on what the coffee amateur did on picking, roasting, grinding until the tasting.

First, we just realized the green bean that we got from "Kopi Mawar" still need lots of job to be done. With the guide from the Japanese book for coffee knowledge, we finally figure out the type of the bad bean which need to be taken away before it roasting. Taking out bad beans as it will affect the taste.
So before we begin to roast the green bean, we have to separate the good bean from the bad one. And as we figure out, hand picking was the only option that we have.
There are 4 of us doing the hand picking on the good beans to the bad beans.
One by one the beans were picked and as per the first time, we almost on doubt that we take the bad bean as the good bean. but with clarifying from each other with the good help from the book guidance, finally we can assure that which one was the good and which was bad.
The hand picking was looked simple, but never come to our mind it was not as easy as we thought.
With the very patient, we were picking 1 Kg unpicked bean one by one.
Here are some picture from the experiment that we have on the hand picking process.















And below is the picture of the good and the bad bean. Madu atau Racun? Which one to choose? Left is the good beans and right the bad beans.














Phew...quite a work but it was great experience to learn the difference between bad beans and good beans. We ended up with red eyes, sore hands but its worth it.

After the good bean has been choosen we are ready on the roasting process. Which will be on the next blog.