This coffee sucks . It ’s the 2nd cupful I ’ve made in a quarrel . It ’s saturnine and grassy . It should savor like red grape and strawberry . I know exactly how tough it is , and I have n’t even savor it yet .
mass accept scientific measure as the truth about a deal of things . Mass. The temperature at which water freezes . The size of the globe . But it ’s operose to bury the approximation of scientifically measuring how something tastes . Taste is subjective . Right ? Not anymore — thanks to ExtractMojo , a appliance that quantifies a cup of coffee ’s flavor .
Vincent Fedele create the original FireWire portable grueling drive for PowerBooks over a X ago . Steve Jobs moderate it onstage at a keynote . People applaud . Right now , Vince is telling me about how the FBI uses crappy imagination hardware to scan fingerprints at a mere 500ppi , so it ’s an astoundingly clumsy method of ID . He speaks at a rapid clip , his northeasterly accent twinge with the high - pitch nasality that immediately outs lifelong nerds . I can already tell I like him . His method acting — analyzing 1000ppi images with political machine vision software package project to examine print circuit display panel — would make fingerprinting as honest as DNA for recognition . He want to use it to make passports more secure . But the technological inadequacies of the Union government is n’t why I call in him .
Since selling his Mac peripherals company , VST Technologiesto SmartDisk , Vince has turned his considerable expertise — in electrical applied science , natural philosophy , optics , materials scientific discipline , digital communications and miniaturization , as he ’s relatively quick to tell you — to a different job : crappy coffee .
Inevitably , the strong point coffee business concern — or what I call “ progressive umber , ” a tagline borrowed fromBaltimore ’s Spro — is populate by obsessives . You might think it postulate a certain form of soul to give care that much about coffee bean , to not consider$75 for 12 ounces of beansan unreasonable prodigality , when most people wince at ante up more than a buck for a cupful of Joe . You ’re right . But it ’s these kind of people who craft anything that ’s really exceptional . mad pizza . The iPhone . Ferraris . Vince is that sort of mortal . I ’m that kind of person . Well , I ’m get there , anyway .
The problem with coffee , Vince says , is that , even if it ’s source and roast impeccably , “ most of us bodge it in the last 5 instant . ” That ’s why he invented ExtractMojo and MojoToGo — to serve us brew coffee right .
Before you could understand what ExtractMojo and MojoToGo in reality do , you postulate to translate the Universal Brewing Control Chart and the Gold Cup Standard .
As Scott Rao ’s highly commend bookEverything But Espressotells it , the original Coffee Brewing Control chart dates back to 1960s inquiry by chemist Ernest E. Lockhart and the National Coffee Association . Through surveys , they determined how Americans liked their burnt umber brew — specifically , the brew strength and nip prefer by most masses .
It ’s important to distinguish strength from flavor . You manifestly know the divergence between warm chocolate that puts hair on your private parts and the seriously weak sauce that would n’t make a 2 - yr - old twitch . stiff coffee has a lot of dissolved solids in it ; the weak deep brown , not so much . The ideal range , for most people , is a brew strength ( or TDS ) of 1.15 - 1.35 percent , grant to Lockhart ’s original enquiry . Today , depending on which coffee association you necessitate , the ideal range is between 1.2 and 1.55 pct . ( The Europeans like it stronger , of course . )
smell is tie to the extraction . It ’s what you pull out of the coffee bonce . When coffee is underextracted , it means that not enough of the flavor element are pulled out of the beans . The results tend to taste sour and/or grassy . When it ’s overextracted — when too many solids are pulled out — it tends to try bitter . Properly extracted , if you ’re using decent burnt umber , it tastes sweet — maybe like red currants , plum tree and cranberry juice top with juniper bush and eucalyptus , if you ’re drinkingIntelligentsia ’s Ethiopia Sidama Shilcho . That most fantabulous range of extraction is 18 - 22 percent . Less is underextracted . More is overextracted . you could have a firm cupful of coffee bean that ’s underextracted , or weakly that umber that ’s overextracted . Starbucks serves just that , says Vince , “ since they discovered you could use less coffee tree by labor finer . They ’re using 20 per centum less deep brown , so they ’re extracting more , ” making it bitter .
The perfect cupful of coffee has a brew strength ( or TDS ) of 1.15 - 1.50 percent and an origin rate of 18 - 22 percentage . It ’s a unusually tiny spot to hit . But uh , how do you get there ? If the brewing restraint chart is a map , ExtractMoJo and MoJoToGo are the GPS .
ExtractMoJois , very simply , arefractometerpaired with the universal brewing control chart , an update version of the original chart from the 1960s . MoJoToGorepackages the ExtractMojo software program into a superhandy iPhone app . The VST deep brown refractometer is plan to evaluate coffee ’s assiduousness by measuring its deflective indicant . ( It scan the speed of light through a liquid spiritualist to around 5 decimal places ) . Not so long ago , a refractometer of the caliber would ’ve cost around $ 10,000 , says Vince , but thanks to the increase big businessman of digital camera resolutions , he was able to create a hand-held model that ’s just a duet hundred Pearl Buck .
When you punch the number the refractometer spit out , along with the amount of water and coffee pulverisation , into ExtractMojo or MoJoToGo , it differentiate you the brew strength and extraction yield . By plot those on the chart , you know whether or not you ’ve brew a decent loving cup of coffee berry , and how off , biting , washy or strong it ’s going to be . By knowing on the nose where your coffee lands , you have an estimate of how to to get to the mellifluous spot , to the double-dyed loving cup of umber .
The magic numeral , according to Vince , is a 19 pct extraction . It ’s a figure that will haunt me .
The first cup of coffee berry I brew is a deuced catastrophe , allot to MoJoToGo . It ’s the first metre I ’ve used a press pot in a calendar month . 16 pct extraction . I can tell it ’s underextracted before I even sip it ; the moist grounds ofStumptown ’s El Salvador Kilimanjarosmell grassy , not like strawberry and crimson grape . My tastebud confirm MoJoToGo ’s ( and my olfactory organ ’s ) prognostication . I make it again , using a finer grind . 17 percentage . Still way under . Shit .
Assuming you ’re using the correct dosages of coffee and water — which MoJoToGo will calculate for you , since precision is cardinal — there are a duet of mode to increase descent . Grinding the attic into finer particles produces more Earth’s surface area for the body of water to come into inter-group communication with , result in more descent . reach the pee hotter increases descent . So does increase brew time . And agitation ( read : stirring ) . I employ all of the above , one at a fourth dimension . I tear through a $ 16.50 one - pound bag of coffee in about three daylight , make coffee berry over and over again , seek the fabulous number 19 . I use a rendering of the French Press technique from Everything But Espresso . commence the kettledrum . count the dome . moil the beans . await for the water to get hold of 206 degrees . Pour 400 g of the heated water supply onto the primer . Start the timekeeper . chuck the coffee tree rosiness . souse the coffee salad days . Wait 4 - 5 minutes . Plunge . Pour . Check result in MoJoToGo . whammy .
The most frustrating part is n’t the resulting Ahab - like search for the ever - baffling 19 per centum . It ’s the revelation of how imprecise my methods are . The 18.3 percent cup that broadcast me into a delirious scope before I even taste it is quickly abide by by one that measures 16 percent ( and tastes like it ) . I ’m all over the map . It drives me insane . And to Amazon , to buy more precise equipment .
That ’s the dark side of MoJo , if there is one . Even in an industry that ’s drive by fixation — from the people who make coffee berry , and the people who drink it — Mojo can inspire a different sort of obsession . Spro ownerJay Caragaytells me about a fellow who wo n’t taste burnt umber without checking it on MoJoToGo first . “ There ’s a shoes for MoJo , ” he say , but in the end , the only interrogative sentence that should matter is , “ does it savor dependable ? ”
A week later , I ’m ready skillful coffee than I was before , more systematically . I still check every cup on MoJoToGo , every individual time . But I can taste it too .
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