Here’s a secret – latte art is pretty straightforward. Is it easy? No way. Does it take months or years of practice to “perfect?” Yup. Can it even be perfected? Nope. Think of latte art like playing the clarinet. I have an idea of how one works, sure. But when I play it I sound less like Brahms Clarinet Sonata No. 2 and more like a cartoon donkey’s bray.

This is all to say, some conceptually simple things are a bit more difficult to pull off. Still yet, I hear frequently from guests in the shop wondering what kind of magic is responsible for making bright white lines appear amid a sea of caramel foam. So let’s take a moment to break down what latte art really is and how it’s made. Maybe you aren’t going to change career paths and become a barista, but hey, it’s fun to know how stuff works, right?

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If you have been to the shop on at least a handful of occasions, you may have noticed that our coffee selection changes. That’s a reflection of seasonality, since coffee is an agricultural product, after all. So what we offer at any given time reflects the harvest season of coffee producing countries around the world.

We receive shipments of coffee from our partners at Madcap Coffee Co. each week, sometimes vastly overhauling our menu week-to-week. But for the most part any coffee we introduce stays on our menu for 2-3 weeks. Relationship building is at the heart of what we do, so it’s only fitting that coffees are around long enough for our guests to experience them upon a few visits before they rotate off the menu.

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I’m often asked about brewing methods and home equipment setups. What’s the best manual brewer? Well, as often is the case, it depends. What kind of coffee appeals to you? What’s your budget? How much attention do you want to pay to the brewing process? These are all good questions that can help you select the right brewer to fit your taste and style. I thought we’d spend a moment here diving into two of the more popular brewing styles (pour over and full immersion) to better equip you when looking for a home brewing setup.

One quick note, when thinking about your coffee budget, I like to suggest an 80/20 split. This means whatever you’d determined you can spend on your brewing gear (grinder + brewing device), spend 80% of that budget on the best grinder you can find, and 20% of the brewer. Remember, your coffee can only be as good as your grinder allows it to be.

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Throughout April we’re shining a spotlight on Burundi by offering three exquisite coffees back-to-back-to-back. If you were around the shop this past week you may have already tried Gishubi. This week we’ve moved on to Gitwe, and we’ll be introducing the last of the trio, Gaharao, next week.

This trio of Burundi coffee represents three distinct hills in the Kayanza and Muramvya regions of Burundi. Over the last 10 years, coffee from Burundi has experienced significant improvement in quality, with intentional farming and processing practices spreading throughout coffee production. Gishubi, Gitwe and Garaho represent the very best of what Burundi has to offer, and we’re excited to offer these coffees in sequence.

Gishubi
Gishubi comes from the forest filled mountains of Kayanza with a native and diverse ecosystem (the healthiest habitat for growing coffee) coupled with some of the highest elevations found in East Africa. The high elevation and the cooler climate make for a wonderful coffee layered with juicy sweetness, complex florals and a lingering mouthfeel.

Gitwe
Gitwe, also from the Kayanza region, is a collection of award-winning producers. Gitwe, by contrast to our other Burundi offerings, is a lively, energizing coffee. Gitwe is reminiscent of a sunny day at the beach, with notes of blackberry, lemon and grapefruit, balanced with the taste of sweet caramel.

Gaharo
Garaho, which comes from Muramvya, is grown among an abundance of other crops, including tea plants. The name Gaharo translates to “we are full” in the native Kirundi language, referring to the beautiful cup with deep structure and comforting sweetness. Look for notes of orange, milk chocolate and plum in this rich and comfort-driven coffee.

Each will be featured as espresso (aside from Gishubi, which was fantastic last week) and available on the pour over menu and as retail bags for home brewing. They are expertly roasted by our friends at Madcap Coffee Co. Come and taste with us!

(photo credit: Madcap Coffee Co.)

What is tea? That sounds like a simple enough question. Why, it’s a beverage, of course! Made from, like, leaves and stuff! Sure, okay. But specifically, when we talk about tea we’re referring to the infusion of a certain perennial evergreen plant called Camellia Sinensis. This includes all of varieties of Camellia Sinensis that are found around the tea-growing world, but does not include a whole host of things we commonly refer to as tea. So then, what’s not tea? Herbal infusions, technically speaking, are not tea;  not rooibos, nor chamomile, nor mint, and so on. These “teas” are actually “tisanes,” as they are not derived from the species of Camellia Sinensis.

There’s a wonderful world of tea out there to explore, but one of the basic challenges to new tea drinkers is understanding how one tea type differs from another – say, green vs black. The reality is, tea is so heavily dependent on how it’s processed after harvest that any tea leaf can be turned into a black, oolong, green and so on. There’s literally no one out there growing black tea, for instance. So as a sort of Tea 101, I thought we’d spend a little time discussing, in general terms, how the major tea types are created.

Steps in Tea Production

In one way or another, all tea is processed using the same few steps – withering, oxidation and drying. We’ll focus mostly on the oxidation step, since it has such a dramatic influence on the resulting flavor and aroma of the tea. But here’s a brief description of each.

Leaves that are removed from a plant begin to wilt and lose water. This is known as withering, and it’s the loss of moisture content that allows the leaves to become malleable and ready for further processing. During this step, flavors and aromas start to concentrate in the leaves.

Then, some level of oxidation is initiated and then stopped at a specific point. Oxidation is what happens when the cellular structure of a plant breaks down and is exposed to oxygen. The result of oxidation is the browning of leaves and changes in the aroma and flavor. Some teas can be very lightly oxidized, heavily oxidized or anywhere in between. This oxidation step has a serious impact on the resulting tea, so it’s where we’ll be spending the bulk of our attention.

The last step we’ll cover here is drying, which is a step that ensures the moisture content of the leaves is reduced enough so that the tea is shelf stable.

Style: Green Tea

Green teas are prized for their freshness and vegetal qualities, so the goal with tea leaves that are destined to become green tea is to halt the oxidation process immediately so they do not brown and change flavor. This is generally done by pan-firing the leaves or steaming them briefly, before raising the temperature to a level in which the enzymes in tea become denatured (halting oxidation). Because freshness is prized in green tea, and the relative low oxidation of the leaves (compared to other styles), it is best to drink green teas soon after they have been harvested and processed.

Style: White Tea

White tea is made by withering the leaves for several days and then drying them (or just withering the leaves until they are dry). This extended withering time allows the leaves the slightly oxidize and the aroma and flavors to develop, providing white tea with a more intense floral aroma than most green teas. The long withering process halts enzyme activity, so no further oxidation will occur.

Style: Oolong Tea

Oolong tea is fascinating because it occupies a broad range of oxidation – from teas that are nearly green tea levels to those bordering on black tea territory. Lightly oxidized oolongs have a vegetal quality, high floral fragrance and buttery mouthfeel. At medium levels of oxidation, intense fruit tones of arise. Finally, with heavy oxidation, oolongs express more dark fruit notes, and sweet and savory qualities like chocolate and nuttiness. Oolongs are oxidized by a characteristic bruising step, in which the leaves are shaken or tumbled so that cellular damage occurs. The leaves are then heated to the point in which the oxidation is halted, locking them into place along the spectrum of oxidation.

Style: Black Tea

On the higher end of oxidation we have black teas. Black teas undergo an oxidation step that breaks down the cellular walls of the leaves by rolling. Rolling is typically done on special rolling tables, which apply pressure to the tea and expose its broken cellular walls to warm, oxygen-rich air that passes over the tea bed. Depending on processing, black teas can be sweet, malty, fruity or savory.

There are certainly other styles of tea out there (including ones we feature on our menu at Mammoth Espresso), but understanding the role oxidation plays in tea processing is a fantastic starting point in your tea journey. I welcome any questions about tea via e-mail at info@mammothespresso.com or during one of our weekly tea tastings, which happen every Wednesday at 2 pm.

In the summer of 2017 we released the very first Mammoth Collaboration. This special coffee was the start of a project with our roasting partner, Madcap Coffee, in which we sought to highlight exceptional, seasonal coffees that are vibrant, complex and full of life – befitting the City of New Orleans.

Over the years the components of the Mammoth Collaboration coffee have changed, but it has always remained a customer favorite, and a coffee that we’re proud to feature in all its various iterations. We’re pleased to announce the latest collaboration coffee is now on our shelves – the Mammoth Collab 5.0.

The latest release features two wonderful coffees from different parts of the coffee producing world. Kanzu, a coffee from Rwanda that was recently featured on our menu, has been blended with Galeras, a beautiful and berry-filled coffee from Colombia. Together, the components of this blend produce distinct notes of stone fruit and peaches, a pleasing floral aroma and delicate mouthfeel.

Enjoy this special collaboration while you can. We expect to have this coffee available through May.

Okay, so grinding. It’s a simple concept, yet still the root cause of bad brews for so many folks making coffee at home (it sometimes befuddles professionals, too, if we’re being honest). Your grind setting is a fundamental variable that can unlock the full potential of your coffee, but it’s a topic that does require a bit of understanding. So let’s get to it!

Consider what would happen if you tossed a roasted coffee bean – wholly intact – into a cup of hot water. Nothing, really, for a while, but eventually the flavoring materials (i.e., chemical compounds) would be released from the bean and dissolved into the water. This is a time-consuming endeavor, and you don’t have to try this for yourself to guess that the resulting beverage would not be ideal. Next, imagine splitting a roasted coffee bean in half. In doing so, you’ve doubled the available surface area and provided a much shorter pathway for water to penetrate the inside of the bean. Don’t brew coffee like this, either, but hey, we’re getting somewhere!

If you continued along this path – splitting the bean segments and exposing more surface area – you’d see the rate at which coffee’s flavoring material is dissolved into water increase dramatically as the particles became smaller (i.e., finer). And at some point, you’d find a nice place where the brew time takes a few minutes and the resulting flavor is complete and balanced.

What’s happening to your coffee as you break down the bean fragments into smaller and smaller pieces is pretty straightforward. 1) Carbon dioxide that’s been trapped inside the coffee is released, which allows easier access for the particles to absorb water; and 2) the increasingly smaller particles create an ever shorter distance that the water must travel to properly extract coffee’s flavoring material.

What happens when the grind is too fine, or coarse?

If we have too much surface area (i.e., the grind is too fine), the water will readily extract chemicals that lead to coffee’s flavor, but it won’t stop there. You see there are other, less desirable chemical compounds that can be pulled into our brew and pollute the flavor. We call this overextraction and it leads to bitter, harsh flavors.

On the other hand, if we have too little surface area (i.e., the grind is too coarse), then our brewing water will have a difficult time reaching and unlocking the flavoring materials inside the coffee fragments. We call this underextraction, and it results in a grassy, sharp brew that lacks sweetness and balance. In this case, we’ve gotten some of what we want from the coffee fragments, but not everything we need.

The relationship between grind and brewing time

Since we know that water can more readily extract flavoring material from smaller particles, it’s intuitive that finer grinds call for faster brew times. (And conversely, coarser grinds need longer brew times.) So when making adjustments to your grind setting, also consider the impact this will have on the time of your total brew cycle.

Particle distribution is a fancy term for “you need a new grinder”

We’re almost home, y’all, but here’s the last tricky little bit. All ground coffee will have a range of particle sizes. Even the best grinders on the market (like the ones we have in the shop) have some amount of smaller and larger particles in addition to the size we’re aiming for. Our goal is to tighten this distribution, so that we maximize the amount of coffee that’s the right size, and limit particles that are either too fine or too coarse.

Alright I saved the bad news for last. That blade grinder – it’s not getting the job done, frankly. Among its many flaws is the massive range of sizes that your coffee particles will fall between. Cheap blade grinders can leave you with too many particles that are excessively fine and excessively coarse, so your resulting whack coffee could be both underextracted and overextracted! For quality results, look for a decent burr grinder. At my home, I use a Baratza Virtuoso, but several less expensive (and more expensive) options are available.

Have a question about coffee or tea? Drop us a line at info@mammothespresso.com.

Around this time last year I was first introduced to the coffee of Efrain Salvador Carhuallocllo, who produces his “Corazón” coffee in San Ignacio, Peru. Our roasting partner, Madcap Coffee, had suggested I bring it into the shop, with the promise that I’d be amazed by the vibrancy and character of Corazón. Indeed, Corazón is bursting with tropical notes of ripe pineapple, sweet blackberry jam and a distinct juicy mouthfeel that I’d more often associate with coffees from Ethiopia or Kenya.

It’s no surprise that Corazón was awarded 2nd place in the first ever Peru Cup of Excellence, but until the past few years this remarkable coffee had been blended together with coffees from the surrounding area. The blended coffee was average, and the participating farmers all received the same low price, regardless of the quality they brought to the blend. Since then, Efrain has worked with Madcap to showcase the quality of his coffee and highlight the possibilities in San Ignacio. Corazón is back at Mammoth Espresso for a second year, it remains one of the best coffees I’ve had in recent memory.

The world of coffee is filled with stories like Efrain’s, whose commitment to quality have the ability to command better prices and a promising future for his farm. Since breaking out on his own, Efrain has been assisting other farmers in San Ignacio in producing better coffees and, for the first time, receiving a sustainable profit for their work.

Corazón is available on our menu and in retail bags for a limited time. We’re glad to share this beautiful coffee with you.

Over last summer we conducted a series of weekly tea tastings that were free to all and covered a broad range of tea subjects. We’re excited to bring these tastings back to life here in 2019 and will hold our first tasting on Wednesday, February 20, at 2 pm.

Past tastings have explored teas by type, such as puer, white, black or green tea, as well as comparing similar teas from different growing regions. It’s a great opportunity to learn more about the world of tea, no matter your experience level. And each session is completely free of charge.

The best way to stay up to speed on the tastings is to follow our Instagram account. We’ll preview each week’s topic in the Instagram Story. We look forward to talking tea with you.