When you take coffee seriously, brewing a cup is not just a matter of a lifestyle or culinary choice. You feel the need to learn as much as you can about the world of coffee, to experiment with gears, and to try as many different coffee beans as you can.
You begin to think that every step of the coffee brewing process needs to be implemented perfectly. If you’ve been having such thoughts, you’d be great as a home barista!
This blog post outlines everything you need to know to whip up your coffee-making skills and take pride in the cups you brew by yourself at home.
Mindset Ready
Before embarking on your home barista journey, there are a couple of mindset shifts you need to be open to.
For starters, this path requires you to have some patience as you’ll likely encounter phases of trial and error. Every time you brew a cup, spend some time tasting it and recording your thoughts on it. This will eventually help you develop a sense of good quality coffee.
By focusing on the joy that coffee brings you, you can continue to remain patient and practice your skills over time.
Secondly, although you don’t need to buy 10 bags of beans and the most expensive equipment right at the beginning, being a home barista is likely to involve some investment.
In order to improve your coffee-making skills at home, you’re going to have to try different blends, repeatedly brew them to achieve a well-extracted decoction, and explore the different ways of brewing coffee.
With everything you do, allow your curiosity to keep you going.
Tools You’ll Need
Don’t let this section overwhelm you. This list is simply a guide showcasing the tools that a seasoned home barista uses.
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Coffee Grinder - To grind coffee fresh at home, you can choose between blade and burr grinders. Each of them have their own pros and cons. Check out this Hario one that uses the burr mechanism to produce a fine grind size.
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Coffee Maker - Be it a stovetop Moka pot, a French press, or an espresso machine, choose a coffee maker that aligns with your lifestyle, budget, and preferences. Coffee makers are known to be good for a certain type of coffee. Understanding this will help you pick the best one.
- Milk Frother or Steamer - Not absolutely essential to have but a milk steamer adds great texture to your coffee. How frothy the milk is impacts the flavours in the cup.
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Scale - Since coffee brewing is a science as much as an art, staying true to measurements will help you produce desired and consistent results. Use a scale to measure the beans, the grounds, and the decoction.
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Kettle - For those using the pour over method, a kettle makes a big difference to how your coffee is extracted. It’ll give you greater control over the speed of pouring hot water onto the grounds, the hand movements needed, and the amount of water that is poured.
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Thermometer - While brewing coffee, water temperature is a crucial factor that affects flavour. In case your choice of brew gear is a Moka pot or an espresso machine, you don’t need a thermometer. But for some other methods where you are manually heating water, noting the temperature will be useful.
- Airtight Container - It is important to store coffee in airtight containers so that they remain fresh for longer. Avoid exposing the grounds or whole beans to air, moisture, and light for a long duration.
Developing Your Skills
Now that you know what tools are a part of a home coffee setup, let’s look at some steps to improving your coffee-making skills.
Coffee Beans
Choosing the coffee beans involves understanding the origin (which contributes to flavour) and the roast type.
Different roasts come with varying tasting notes and aromas. Moreover, you can choose between single origin coffee or blends. Single origin coffee is that which has been sourced from a single estate or plot. Blends usually contain 2-3 different single origins that are blended together to achieve a certain end-product.
Regardless of which you pick, make sure to get freshly roasted coffee and that too in small batches. You don’t want to stock up on too much coffee at a time only to realise that they’re going stale.
Lastly, understand how grind size is relevant to the brewing method. This will set the foundation for your knowledge pertaining to coffee pre-brewing.
Brewing Process
Sometimes, it might feel like you’re juggling a bunch of different aspects of brewing coffee but with time, everything will fall into place and become effortless.
Depending on the brew method and type of coffee drink you’re making, you want to pay attention to the coffee-to-water ratio, the water temperature, the brew duration, and the additional ingredients needed for the recipe.
For some drinks, you might need just milk or sugar. Some others may require syrups, ice cubes, and other ingredients.
Follow the recipe closely, as you might observe that changing the order of preparing a drink might change the flavour sensation in certain cases.
Understanding the Science
A few coffee-related terms you should know are extraction, percolation, and immersion.
While extraction has to do with flavour compounds being extracted from the ground coffee into the hot water, the processes of percolation and immersion define the manner in which the decoction is made.
Methods like French press and cold brew are immersion brewing methods as coffee grounds remain steeped in water for some time. Whereas pour over, traditional Indian coffee filter, and espresso machines all use percolation. In this process, hot water is passed through coffee grounds and only comes into contact with them briefly.
Cleaning & Storage
Maintain a nook in your kitchen that can be used for your coffee setup. Keeping this station neat and tidy goes a long way in adding to your coffee brewing routine.
Moreover, all your equipment and vessels should be cleaned and maintained thoroughly. Especially if you’re using an espresso machine that has complex hardware. The better the maintenance, the longer your coffee gear will work without problems.
Latte Art
A skill that adds to the appeal of making and drinking pleasant cups of coffee, creating latte art comes with practice.
You can learn how to create simple yet beautiful patterns on the coffee surface using foamed milk.
As you begin to perfect your barista skills, you’ll gain the expertise to try new recipes and techniques.
Eventually, the convenience (and cost-effectiveness) of making your own coffee as per your preferences will overshadow the ease of relying on café coffee.
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