FROM BEAN TO BREW What goes into brewing the perfect cup of coffee? The short answer is ‘a lot’. By MONIQUE CECCATO
ORIGIN, FARMING CONDITIONS, roast, blend, temperature, and freshness; there’s so much more to the perfect cup of coffee than meets the eye. Beneath that pretty latte art heart is a complex beverage that, through its flavour, tells a story of its journey from farm to cup. By the time a bag of coffee beans has made its way from the source to the roaster and, finally, into the hands of your local barista, it’s come up against an infinite number of variables that all impart their characteristics on the coffee’s flavour profile. “The tricky thing about coffee is that every process has the ability to affect the final flavour,” says Alistair Ingram, general manager at Yahava
Koffeeworks in West Swan. When a bag of green beans arrives in the Yahava warehouse, there’s no improving on the raw product, he says, just preserving and showcasing their inherent quality. For Lindsay Davies, head roaster at FiORi Coffee at Oakoaver Grounds, coffee is at its best and most pure when it’s sitting ripe on the tree. According to him, the bean at that stage is the truest show of the way coffee is supposed to be. “There are all these different chains for the coffee beans to get through to get to you as a consumer, and everyone that does their job so the product can still remain
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